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Rwandan soldiers were sent to Mozambique to take part in the fight against the armed group Al-Shabab in the province of Cabo Delgado. The announcement was made on Friday, July 9 by Kigali. Cabo Delgado is located in the far north of Mozambique, on the border with Tanzania, and has been in an armed uprising since 2017. An uprising with local roots, but which has promised allegiance to the Islamic State organization.
It is a contingent of 1000 people that Rwanda announces that they are distributing this Friday in the direction of Mozambique. These are soldiers and teams from the Rwandan national police who will support the Mozambican army in its fight against the insurgency.
The Rwandan government specifies in its press release that its troops will take part in combat operations in the province of Cabo Delgado and that this deployment stems from the good relations between Maputo and Kigali. In 2018, the two states signed several bilateral agreements to strengthen their economic interactions and diplomatic ties.
Bilateralism is also the formula preferred by the Mozambican authorities since the beginning of the Cabo Delgado crisis to define à la carte the strategic support they benefit from.
But because the murderous and high-profile attack on Palma, at the end of March, which worsened the humanitarian situation and provokedshutdown of the giant gas project led by the French group Total on the Afungi Peninsula, the entire international community – at the head of southern Africa – is concerned about the consequences of insecurity in northern Mozambique. By the end of June, the SADC member had agreed to send troops on behalf of the regional organization without providing an exact timetable.
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