Southern African regional bloc SADC has agreed to extend a troop deployment in Mozambique to help the government fight an Islamic State-linked insurgency.
“Summit approved the extension of the SAMIM (SADC Mission in Mozambique) to continue with offensive operations against terrorists and violent extremists,” the bloc said in a communique after top officials met in Pretoria, South Africa.
The SADC troop deployment was initially for three months and due to end on Oct. 15.
The communique did not say how long the extension was approved for.
Southern African nations agreed in June to send troops to help Mozambique respond to the insurgency, which is concentrated in the northern province of Cabo Delgado and has claimed thousands of lives since beginning in 2017.
Rwanda, which is not a SADC member, began deploying soldiers in Mozambique a month later.
The fighting brought a $20 billion natural gas project led by French energy company TotalEnergies to a halt, after fighters attacked the town of Palma in March.
The communique on Tuesday said three soldiers on the SADC mission to Mozambique had lost their lives, from Botswana and Tanzania.
How the national army of Mozambique which has been independent more than 30 years was unable to neutralise a rag-tag band of informal sector soldiers I cannot understand. They don’t even have sophisticated weaponry from wht the Rwandese detachment has captured from them.
Sadc countries are are not serious, really how can Rwanda just a small country could do such a massive work in mozambique, and just heard sadc army today I always see Rwanda army everywere. Sadc you have disappointed me sure
Me too really. Africa really leaves much to desire, and u must see these some of these soldiers during inauguration ceremonies or independence celebrations how they parachute off moving cars & March in unison, fire grenades & bombs, they can make u think that even Iraq we can challenge. But comes jst a gorilla from within Africa , they fail display their skill. Yaba
Which Technically means that no country in Africa can stand against another militarily as they are all weak(Except Rwanda and 2 others). Look at Congo – failed to bring rebels to order, Angola, Mozambique & waste embarrassment is Nigeria, the mighty Nigeria? Failed to bring the girls back home, failed to contain a tiny, defenseless, gorilla Arbubakar . How do you explain this ? Now Arbubakar has grown in that he extended his operations into Chad, Cameroon etc and now, Mozambique. All along no single Army ever won except for Paul Kagame recently in Mozambique
@Nemwine these informal sector soldiers can be hard to get rid of. Remember how the US was humiliated in Somalia. Perhaps a larger force is needed to mop up the whole area. Otherwise these characters might start spreading into the other countries around and establish smaller cells.
I agree that informal sector soldiers are difficult to fight with because they are within the civilian population u’re expected to defend. In Afghanistan, the USA effort was hopelessly infiltrated. Some Afghan army soldiers trained by the USA were switching sides after getting vital training and information.
Is zambia sending troops there as well. We need to put our men and women in uniform to active use. Some one can rise to rank of general without fighting in a single war.