Botswana has deployed 400 soldiers to Mozambique to bolster the country’s fight against an insurgency in Cabo Delgado wrought by the ISIS caliphate.
The Commander-in-Chief President Mokgweetsi Masisi saw off the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) troops leave for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission in Mozambique on Monday.
Minister of Defense, Justice and Security Kagiso Mmusi told The Telegraph: “It was agreed that South Africa will be the team commander while Botswana will be the deputy, so as a result we agreed that the two leaders should lead the team by going to Mozambique to make preparations for the team.”
The two leaders are in Mozambique as we speak and the two nations will be sending a total of 900 soldiers to Cabo Delgado this week,” said Mmusi.
Mmusi said he has engaged the Botswana Defense Force leadership on many occasions, saying that they have indicated readiness to take up the task.
“They have been attending these SADC [Southern African Development Community] meetings and they know the task lying ahead, so I have no qualms whatsoever that they have equipped the military,” added Mmusi.
He said local soldiers have been receiving high intense training, adding that they were recently capacitated by the United of States of America.
The deadly insurgency in northern Mozambique is posing a threat to other countries in the region.
The SADC economic bloc of 15 countries has discussed aims to ensure peace in Mozambique.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi recently indicated the need for the countries of the region to get involved in the search for a common decision that would bind all the capitals.
“Botswana as the current Chair of the Organ, SADC Organ on the Politics, Security in the Region has conveyed meetings to discuss issues of instability in the Region, and more recently has concentrated on the situation in Mozambique,” said Masisi.
Masisi said the costs of intervention in Mozambique had to be weighed against the cost of allowing the insurgency in that country to continue claiming lives and potentially spilling over “onto our shores”. “Do we say no, we have a Covid burden and no money? There will be proportionate on what will be appropriate to respond to the threat. The specifics, I cannot speak to those, because it could compromise the people in charge of this. If this is being livestreamed, the terrorists are watching. They threatened that any state that tries to help Mozambique will also be targeted,” said Masisi.
It was confirmed during the summit that progress has been made in finding a solution to the armed violence that has lasted for more than three years in Cabo Delgado.
A SADC technical mission visited the region last month and proposed to send nearly 3,000 troops and military assets to help Mozambique fight the armed groups responsible for the attacks that have wreaked havoc.
The conflict has left 3 000 people dead and 700 000 displaced since it took shape in October 2017, after Africa’s richest offshore natural gas deposits were discovered off Cabo Delgado, some 1 600km north of Maputo.
The United Nations estimates 1.3 million people need urgent humanitarian assistance and that 670,000 have been pushed out of their homes by the violence. Last year saw more than 570 violent incidents in the nation’s three northern provinces.
