RWANDA BEEFS UP TROOPS IN MOZ

…as South African soldiers prepare to leave

KIGALI - Rwanda plans to put more boots on the ground in Mozambique's oil-rich Cabo Delgado when the SADC Standby Force in Mozambique withdraws in about two months, a senior Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) commander has disclosed.

The deployment is due to be funded by new money from the European Union.

Rwanda already has a personnel count of more than 2, 500 in Mozambique, Brigadier General Patrick Karuretwa, who heads the Rwandan Defence Force's international cooperation, told journalists in Kigali.

That force was deployed just after the SADC bloc sent in a roughly equivalent number of soldiers, twothirds of them from South Africa.

The two armies operated in different parts of Cabo Delgado and, at first, they didn't share information. They later cooperated in some operations.

Now Rwanda is preparing to go it alone. The withdrawal of SADC troops "forces us to take certain measures," said Karuretwa.

Karuretwa said Rwanda's intervention had helped bring relative calm to Cabo Delgado, but added that what he described as pockets of violence remained.

In mid-2023, SADC claimed it had achieved its objective of reducing the capacity of the Islamic insurgency to destabilise Cabo Delgado.

But soon after, a new wave of attacks started.

Some fear the jihadists could regain a solid foothold, which would, in turn, give their umbrella group, the Islamic State, a bridgehead in Southern Africa.

Rwanda's intervention in Mozambique is outside the United Nations mandate, via a bilateral agreement between Maputo and Kigali.

Early this week, the European Union announced plans to donate about R380 million to help the RDF's mission in Cabo Delgado. This grant will be provided through the EU's programme to promote global peace.

Rwanda is one of the world's top contributors to peacekeeping missions. Currently, it has 2, 100 troops in the Central African Republic and more than a thousand attached to UN forces.

This makes for well over 5, 000 soldiers deployed elsewhere in Africa.

Karuretwa said Rwanda's appetite for contributing troops to peacekeeping missions was because the they had direct experience of how bad peacekeeping could affect a country. –

Rwandan soldiers from Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) and Rwandan policemen prepare to board a ‘Rwandair’ plane for a military mission to Mozambique at Kanombe airport, Kigali, Rwanda. (Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP).