BY MOSES MATENGA
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa will tomorrow join other Southern African Development Community (Sadc) leaders in a crucial regional meeting to map a strategy to fight Islamist militants in Mozambique’s town of Palma that has led to over 2 500 deaths and 700 000 displacements since 2017.
Sadc leaders have been under pressure to act on the terror in Mozambique and have been meeting since last year to find a solution to the crisis that has rocked the southern African country’s Cabo Delgado province for the past two years.
The province has been under siege from the terrorists with hundreds of militants storming the City of Palma last week targeting shops, banks and military barracks in an attack that left over seven people dead.
Sadc confirmed that an extraordinary double troika summit will take place in Maputo, Mozambique, to deliberate on measures to address terrorism in Zimbabwe’s neighbouring country.
“Sadc is deeply concerned about the continued terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado, especially for the lives and welfare of the residents who continue to suffer from the atrocious, brutal and indiscriminate assaults,” the regional bloc said in statement yesterday.
Mnangagwa will be joined by his Botswana counterpart Mokgweetsi Masisi who is the chairperson of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation.
Masisi last week described the attacks as “an affront to peace and security not only in Mozambique but in the region and the international community as a whole”.
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The Sadc summit, the regional bloc said, is the overall policymaking institution managed on a troika system that include the current Sadc chairperson, the incoming and the immediate past chairpersons.
“The extraordinary double troika summit will be preceded by the extraordinary organ troika summit which will also take place on April 8, 2021 as well as the supporting technical meetings on April 7, 2021,” the statement read in part.
The double troika comprises current Sadc chair Mozambique, incoming chair Malawi, Tanzania (outgoing chair), Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
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