Mozambique: Supreme Court president calls for regional action against terrorism

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Mozambique: Supreme Court president calls for regional action against terrorism

3:32 CAT | 25 Oct 2022

Image: Southern African Chief Justices' Forum - SACJF

The president of the Supreme Court of Mozambique, Adelino Muchanga, has called for new ways of acting by the judiciary against terrorism in southern Africa, stressing that this type of crime is a direct threat to societies and states.

“The new forms of terrorism also impose on the judiciary new ways of acting to combat the phenomenon,” said Muchanga, speaking at the opening of the conference and annual meeting of the Southern African Chief Justices’ Forum – SACJF on Monday.

The judiciary and the countries of Southern Africa should address the weaknesses that favour the growth of the terrorist threat in the region, he argued.

READ: Mozambique hosts the Southern African Chief Justices’ Forum – SACJF

“It is important to eliminate the facilities that allow the emergence, development and spread of this phenomenon,” he stressed, warning that the lack of “integrated action … will always leave room for the emergence and even resurgence of terrorism.”

Muchanga noted that this type of criminality is a direct threat to life, society and the maintenance of the democratic rule of law in the region.

Mozambique, in particular, has been plagued since 2017 by the action of armed groups in Cabo Delgado province, in the north of the country, described by the authorities and international entities as terrorism.

The insurgency has led to a military response for the last year, with support from Rwanda and the SADC, making it possible to liberate districts near natural gas projects, but new waves of violence have emerged in the south of the region and in the neighbouring province of Nampula.

In five years, the conflict has displaced around one million people, according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and left around 4,000 dead, according to the conflict registration project ACLED.

Source: Lusa