Malawi ready to host 41st SADC extraordinary meeting—Chakwera

President Chakwera speaking to Malawi media at Maputo International Airport

By Mercy Makuwira, MANA in Maputo

President Lazarus Chakwera says Malawi is ready to host the forthcoming 41st Southern African Development Community (SADC) extraordinary meeting scheduled to take place in August this year.

Speaking at a press briefing at Maputo International Airport on Thursday before departure for Malawi after attending an Extraordinary Double Troika Summit that was convened to deliberate on measures to address terrorism in Mozambique, Chakwera said committees have already started meeting to plan for the meeting.

SADC, the regional economic community, comprises 16 member states — Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

On the Double Troika Summit he attended, Chakwera said Malawi would work in collaboration with other member states to fight the terrorism acts taking place in Mozambique.

“As a region, we are all in agreement that all of us are facing one common enemy that we have to fight as a unit,” he said.

At the summit’s official opening Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi, called for concerted and proactive efforts by all SADC member states in dealing with terrorism by making available human and capital resources for the acts not to escalate to the whole region.

The member states came up with a number of resolutions, one of them being a directive for an immediate technical deployment to Mozambique and to convene an extraordinary meeting of the ministerial committee on the Troika by April 28 that will report to the Extraordinary Troika Summit the following day, April 29.

Mozambique is experiencing terrorism acts by an armed militant group known as al-Shabaab that is attacking the coastal town of Palma in Cabo Delgado where according to a report by UNHCR the attacks have left more than 670,000 people displaced.

Upon receiving reports of the attacks, President of Botswana called for the extraordinary meeting so that members of the Troika organ on Politics Defence and Security Cooperation to discuss on how to deal with the attacks as a unit.

Politics Defence and Security Cooperation comprises Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe.