Mozambique: Portugal available for military aid in Cabo Delgado

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Mozambique: Portugal available for military aid in Cabo Delgado

11:53 CAT | 26 Nov 2020

FILE - Portugal's Defence Miniter João Gomes Cravinho. [File photo: Lusa]

The Portuguese minister of defence on Wednesday admitted the possibility of sending military forces to help Mozambique in the fight against terrorism in Cabo Delgado, depending on what the authorities of that country want, highlighting the experience in the area of training.

“Portugal is available. Mozambique is a sister country to the CPLP (Community of Portuguese-language Countries), a country with which we feel very close and are obviously always available. It is primarily up to the Mozambican authorities to establish what they consider useful. Portugal is completely available,” Gomes Cravinho said.

After the presentation of a book by the General Staff of the Armed Forces on missions in the Central African Republic between 2017 and 2020, Gomes Cravinho was questioned by journalists about Portugal’s willingness to support Mozambique in the fight against terrorism in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique.

He noted that Portugal has a long experience of working with Mozambique.

“There is also dialogue with the EU and, in any EU mission, of course, Portugal would participate, but we have our bilateral cooperation, which will continue and certainly be strengthened in this field,” Gomes Cravinho said.

Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa, spoke Tuesday with Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, and announced a forthcoming bilateral summit between the two countries in the second half of 2021 in Maputo.

The armed violence in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, is causing a humanitarian crisis with around 2,000 deaths and 500,000 displaced people, without housing or food, mainly concentrated in the provincial capital, Pemba.

The province where the largest private investment in Africa is being made for the exploitation of natural gas has been under attack by insurgents for three years and some of the incursions have been claimed by the jihadist Islamic State group since 2019.

Source: Lusa