EU ON TRACK TO SEND MILITARY TRAINING MISSION TO MOZAMBIQUE

Fri 28 May 2021:

The European Union will send a mission to Mozambique to train the African country’s military amid a security crisis, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday at an informal meeting of defense ministers in Portugal’s Lisbon.

Last month, the African country requested the EU’s military and security assistance in fighting Islamist groups in the wake of a brutal attack in the town of Palma in the northernmost Cabo Delgado province, one of the country’s poorest and most neglected regions.

“It is advancing, it is on track. I think that we could be able to approve this mission. The problem will be to look for capacities, apart from Portugal, who else is going to contribute,” Borrell said when asked the state of play of the training mission to Mozambique.

The top EU diplomat added that it would take “a couple of months” to send the mission.

The latest in a series of attacks targeting towns in the country’s north, the attack on gas-rich Palma has raised concerns about the ability of Mozambican authorities to fulfill their earlier commitment in securing Cabo Delgado.

In late March, jihadists announced the seizure of Palma after several days of hostilities, killing an unknown number of people and displacing some 14,000 others in the province. On April 2, the police of Mozambique told Sputnik that there were no militants in the town any longer. The Islamic State terrorist group earlier claimed responsibility for the attack.