SADC leaders to meet over regional security issues

HARARE, Nov. 26, (Xinhua/GNA) – The Southern African Development Community will on Friday convene a Heads of State and Government summit in Gaborone, Botswana, to deliberate on the Islamic insurgency and acts of terrorism in Mozambique.

They will also discuss the reconfiguration of the Force Intervention Brigade under the United Nations (UN) Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), spokesperson for the Zimbabwean Foreign Affairs Ministry, Constance Chemwayi, said on Wednesday.

The insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Province in the north has left more than 2,000 people dead and at least 400,000 others displaced.

Chemwayi said Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Sibusiso Moyo would on Thursday participate at an extra-ordinary Ministerial Committee of the Organ on Politics, Defense and Security Cooperation in the same country to discuss the same issues.

He would be accompanied by the Defense Minister, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri and the National Security Minister, Owen Ncube, she added in a press statement.

“A summit of Heads of State and Government will be convened on November 27, 2020, under the chairmanship of His Excellency Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi, the President of the Republic of Botswana, to discuss the same agenda,” she added.

MONUSCO, which is successor to an earlier UN peacekeeping operation – the UN Organization Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) – was authorized to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate.

The mandate relates to, among other things, the protection of civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under imminent threat of physical violence and to support the government of the DR Congo in its stabilization and peace consolidation efforts.

GNA