Preparatory mission for EU support to Cabo Delgado ends

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Preparatory mission for EU support to Cabo Delgado ends

3:15 CAT | 21 Jan 2021

Portuguese Minister of State and Foreign Affairs and leader of a European Union mission, Augusto Santos Silva, speaks to journalists at the end of a meeting with the President of the Republic of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, in Maputo, Mozambique, 20 January 2021. [Photo: RFI]

The preparatory mission for European Union support to Cabo Delgado, in Mozambique, led by the Portuguese Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, ends this Thursday.

Augusto Santos Silva, is meeting the Ministers of Defence and of the Interior of Mozambique this Thursday at the end of his three-day visit to Maputo as representative of the European Union (EU) .

Augusto Santos Silva was also scheduled to meet with members of civil society organizations and representatives of partner countries.

The visit to Mozambique takes place in the semester in which Portugal holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, and is a preparatory mission of the European Union’s support to Cabo Delgado following the request for help that Mozambique addressed to the EU in September 2020. Brussels had already responded positively.

This Wednesday, the Portuguese Foreign Minister met the Mozambican President, Filipe Nyusi, who took “good note” of the EU’s availability to support Mozambique in facing security problems in Cabo Delgado.

Nyusi “welcomed the EU’s willingness” to work with the Mozambican government “in the areas of logistics, health and military training, as well as in areas that the government considers important”.

At the end of the meeting, the Portuguese official said: “I am satisfied with this meeting because the best way to get to the specific design of the European support quickly is to start with such a clear and precise identification of what the priorities of the Mozambican authorities are.”

Augusto Santos Silva has taken note of three fundamental areas in this regard: military training, support of humanitarian action and support for the Agency for the Development of Northern Mozambique [ADIN].

The head of Portuguese diplomacy noted that EU support for development projects in Cabo Delgado amounts to around €25 million, and that the province is among its priorities for humanitarian action, there still being “a need to add an increase in cooperation in the security area”.

Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique, has been grappling with an armed insurgency for three years. In this province, where Africa’s largest private multinational investment is developing for the exploitation of natural gas, there is a humanitarian crisis with more than 2,000 deaths and 560,000 people internally displaced. Some of the attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group since 2019.

Source: RFI