Fri 09 July 2021:
Rwanda said on Friday it will send 1,000 troops to Mozambique to help the country to combat an escalating Islamic State-linked insurgency that threatens its stability.
The 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) last month approved the deployment of a joint force to help Mozambique respond to the conflict that is concentrated in the northern Cabo Delgado province.
“The government of Rwanda, at the request of the government of Mozambique, will today start the deployment of a 1,000-person contingent of the Rwanda Defence Force and the Rwanda National Police to Cabo Delgado Province,” Kigali said in a statement.
The forces will “support efforts to restore Mozambican state authority by conducting combat and security operations, as well as stabilisation and security-sector reform”, it added.
The Rwandan contingent will work with the Mozambique Armed Defence Forces and those from SADC “in designated sectors of responsibility”.
Mozambique’s Defence Ministry said would release information on the matter later on Friday.
Almost 800,000 people have been displaced in Cabo Delgado and the fighting has brought a $20 billion natural gas project led by oil giant Total to a halt.
Concern
But Adriano Nuvunga, head of Mozambique’s Centre for Democracy and Development in Maputo, voiced concern at the Rwandan deployment.
“We see this as a not good move because it will further militarise northern Cabo Delgado and it can lead deep into the conflict moving in the wrong direction.” Rwanda is already a major contributor to the UN’s peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic and last year sent hundreds of troops to the unstable country after an attempted coup.
Nyusi, himself a former defence minister, had long shied away from asking for foreign military intervention to fight the jihadists, instead relying on private military companies.
FILE PHOTO
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