Mozambique: Portugal to provide military training, logistics in fight against Cabo Delgado terrorists

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Mozambique: Portugal to provide military training, logistics in fight against Cabo Delgado terrorists

5:52 CAT | 11 Dec 2020

Photo: Lusa

Portugal will support Mozambique in organising logistics and building the capacity of the military to deal with the rebel groups that have been carrying out armed attacks in Cabo Delgado province, the Portuguese defence minister told Lusa in Maputo on Friday.

“From the start of January, a team of Portuguese military personnel will come to work with the Mozambican defence and security forces to design the project, which we want to start very quickly,” said João Gomes Cravinho.

According to Cravinho, the training, to be carried out in Mozambique, will cover rapid intervention forces, special forces, marines and military in the area of tactical air control, with cyberdefence, cartography, hydrography and defence industrial cooperation being defined as “areas of specific interest”.

“We are talking about a non-executive mission. What we are going to do is to support the Mozambican authorities so that they can exercise their sovereignty”, Mr Cravinho stressed.

“The emergence of terrorism in the north of Mozambique has some characteristics in common with terrorism in other parts of the world, particularly on the African coast. But it also has local features. Therefore, it is fundamental to understand what comes from outside and what has developed from national roots”, he declared.

Also read: Bilateral Meeting between the Ministers of National Defence of the Republic of Mozambique and the Portuguese Republic – joint communique

João Gomes Cravinho also said that Portugal, which assumes the presidency of the EU in the first half of 2021, would seek to reinforce the request for support already made by Maputo to Brussels.

“This is a very favourable coincidence. We will use this presidency to strengthen the EU’s response to the needs on the ground,” he said.

Cabo Delgado province has been under insurgent attack for three years and some of the incursions have been claimed by the ‘jihadist’ Islamic state group since 2019.

The violence is causing a humanitarian crisis with more than 2,000 deaths and 560,000 displaced people, without housing or food, mainly concentrated in the provincial capital, Pemba.

Mozambique and Portugal have had a defence cooperation agreement since 1988.

During João Gomes Cravinho’s visit, in addition to aspects linked to armed violence in Cabo Delgado, the parties discussed aspects linked to the response to Covid-19, and Portugal expressed openness to support Mozambique in its national vaccination plan.

The Portuguese defence minister’s working visit to Mozambique was aimed at negotiating a new bilateral defence cooperation programme and closer relations with Africa under the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Source: Lusa