The Southern African Development Community (SADC) peace mission in Mozambique will be withdrawn next Monday, according to Zambian Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe.
“Hon. Haimbe stated that the SADC Mission in Mozambique will fully withdraw by 15th July, 2024 from Pemba, Cabo Delgado Province having carried out its mandate,” Zambia Foreign Ministry wrote on X.
He revealed this information at the two-day 26th meeting of the ministerial committee of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defense, and Security.
The minister also highlighted that since SAMIM's deployment, it has achieved notable successes, such as recapturing villages and driving terrorists from their strongholds. Haimbe expressed confidence that, building on these accomplishments, the government of Mozambique and its partners will continue SAMIM's efforts to fully eliminate extremists from Cabo Delgado Province and that the mission's withdrawal won't create a "security vacuum" in the region.
The terrorist groups Ansar al-Sunna* and ISCAP (a branch of the Daesh*) have been operating in Cabo Delgado since 2017, trying to take control of this oil-rich area.
In July 2021, the SADC Mission in Mozambique was sent to the province to suppress the conflict. The mission consisted of troops from Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia.
Over the next three years, SADC forces inflicted a series of significant defeats on the terrorist groups, pushing them out of the coastal areas and into the interior of the country.
In April, the mission's troops began to withdraw due to the stabilized situation in northern Mozambique and a lack of financial resources to sustain the SADC contingent, as stated by Veronica Nataniel Macamo Dlhovo, Mozambique's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
However, last week, Save the Children, an international non-government organization based in London, reported a 10% increase in child marriage cases in 2023 compared to last year, with concerns that numbers are still rising due to the conflict.
Furthermore, a surge in attacks in Cabo Delgado since January has closed schools, affecting over 22,700 children.
* Daesh, also known as ISIL/ISIS/IS, is a terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.