THE insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province by the Islamist extremists has caused untold suffering on the people as it has turned the area into a killing field, and if not stopped, can unsettle the region’s peace and stability.
The situation has gone out of hand such that calls for regional intervention got louder in recent weeks. In response, the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) held a Double Troika summit in Maputo to counter the insurgency with “proportionate force”.
This is a welcome move because it is better late than never. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing the escalating crisis in the province which, since 2017, has played home to the Islamist insurgency linked to the Islamic State.
The province has become the byword for a humanitarian crisis, a cocktail of the Islamist conflict, cyclones, COVID-19 and disease.
It is agreeable that intervention, including military response, is necessary to avert the crisis from escalating out of control. Mozambique cannot manage this crisis alone because its army is poorly equipped to combat the Islamist insurgency.
The situation has gone dire as the Islamist insurgency has forced more than 350 000 to flee their homes and now threaten some of the largest natural gas projects in the region.
The intervention from Sadc was long overdue as the situation had gone out of hand. However, due diligent should be excised by the bloc in responding to this situation because walking in blindly will likely to cause more calamities.
The reginal bloc should first study the unheralded causes of the conflict and complexities around the insurgency in Mozambique and proffer informed solution to the crisis.
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Without taking anything away from what Sadc called “proportionate force”, it is worth mentioning that military responses elsewhere by themselves have failed to combat terrorism.
The Mozambican crisis is the best platform for the regional bloc to lay the foundation to probe what drives insurgency and terrorism as they address future political, economic, social and religious tensions in the region.
As Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi noted: “We all agree that the deteriorating security situation in the northern province of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique is indeed a serious threat to peace and security not only our sister country but also to the whole region and humanity at large. In particular, the recent attacks in the town of Palma have recently demonstrated the magnitude of the problem at our doorsteps.”
It is commendable that Sadc is finally acting, but why did it take so long to make a move?
