Southern African leaders warn of hunger in the region at annual summit

Harare, Aug 17 (EFE).- Southern African leaders warned on Saturday during the annual summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) of the hunger faced by some countries in the region as a result of a long drought.

Among them, Zimbabwewhose President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, assumed the annual rotating Presidency of SADC from his Angolan counterpart, João Lourenço, in a ceremony at the New Parliament in Harare.

“There is hunger in the region due to climate change and we must work together to leave no one behind,” urged the president of Zimbabwe, where 8.7 million peoplemore than half of the population, are hungry.

Mnangagwa’s remarks at the summit in AFRICA

Mnangagwa said the fight against eThe hunger caused the drought induced by the El Niño weather phenomenon is his top priority as SADC’s rotating chairman.

Lourenço said the region needs $5.5 billion (about €4.99 billion) to help feed the population at risk.

“Our resources are still lacking and we are calling on the international community and the private sector to help us. We have gathered information that we could suffer from a natural disaster such as El Niño in Africa in the future and we have to be prepared for it,” said the Angolan president.

Attendees at the summit in Africa

The summit was attended by the heads of state of all 16 SADC member states, except Zambia.

Zambian President Haikande Hichilema followed the summit virtually from his country. This was because, he claimed, he did not feel safe in Zimbabwe after receiving insults from Mnangagwa’s spokesman, George Charamba, for questioning the election results in August 2023.

Accepting the new role, Mnangagwa called on SADC leaders to continue to support Zimbabwe in the face of sanctions imposed by Western countries, which he said were being used as a “political tool” against developing countries.

“We shared the trenches when we fought together for our liberation during the time of colonisation, let us stand in solidarity,” Mnangagwa added.

Countries that confirm SADC

The countries that make up SADC are the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Africa, Botswana, Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles and Tanzania, in addition to the aforementioned Zimbabwe, Angola and Zambia.

Outside the new parliament, armed police are still patrolling the streets of cities to prevent protests called by the opposition. A curfew has also been imposed, with shops closing at 8pm local time (1800 GMT).

The summit and Mnangagwa’s inauguration come amid a wave of arrests of dissidents, mostly supporters of the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), the main opposition party.

Arrested

Twelve members of the CCC were arrested on Friday in a rural area in the centre of the country. A Harare MP was also abducted from his home by armed men. He was taken to the cells of the capital’s central prison.

Since June, 124 CCC members have been arrested in Zimbabwe, with many reporting beatings and torture by security forces.

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have condemned the situation and called for the release of those detained.

The embassies of the European Union and the United States have also expressed their concern over the wave of arrests in the last week. They have also urged “respect for fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Constitution.”EFE