JOHANNESBURG, May 19 (Reuters) – Rwanda’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that Mozambique had secured the funds for Rwanda’s army to continue its deployment in the insurgency-hit and gas-rich Cabo Delgado province.
Rwanda sent troops to northern Mozambique in 2021, at Mozambique’s request, to help stabilise areas previously overrun by an Islamic State-linked insurgency.
Its mission was partly funded by the European Union, which Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said had become reluctant to provide funding.
“This year, Rwanda… decided to deal exclusively with the Government of Mozambique, which, in its turn, has secured and will continue to secure the necessary funding for the Rwandan security forces in Cabo Delgado,” he wrote on X.
He did not say how much funding had been secured or for how long. Mozambique’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rwanda had warned in March that it may withdraw its troops if adequate funding could not be secured, after Bloomberg reported that the EU was not planning to renew its support.
The terms of Mozambique’s agreement with Rwanda have never been made public.
The presence of Rwandan troops helped weaken the insurgency enough for TotalEnergies to relaunch its $20 billion Liquefied Natural Gas project in Mozambique’s far north earlier this year, though analysts tracking the insurgency say attacks still continue.
(Reporting by Nellie Peyton;Additional reporting by Custodio Cossa in Maputo and Philbert Girinema in Kigali;Editing by Alexander Winning and Gareth Jones)
