An extraordinary Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit to discuss armed violence in Cabo Delgado, scheduled for the 17th, has been postponed without a date, an official source told Lusa on Wednesday.
According to the same source, the postponement is due to the growing number of infections caused by Covid-19 in the country.
The decision to hold an extraordinary summit was announced on 14 December, after a high-level SADC consultation meeting held in Maputo, a meeting which, besides the Mozambican head of state, was attended by Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa, of South Africa, Mokgweetsi Masisi, of Botswana, and Emmerson Mnangagwa, of Zimbabwe, as well as the vice-president of Tanzania, Samia Sulihu.
The armed violence in Cabo Delgado, where Africa’s largest private multinational investment for natural gas exploitation is taking place, started three years ago and is causing a humanitarian crisis with more than 2,000 deaths and 560,000 displaced people, without housing or food, mainly concentrated in the provincial capital, Pemba.
Some of the incursions have been claimed by the ‘jihadist’ Islamic state group since 2019.
Lusa
