South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has authorised the use of 1,495 members of the military to help neighbour Mozambique fight an Islamic State-linked insurgency, parliament said on Wednesday, APA reports quoting Reuters.
The use of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) comes after southern African regional bloc SADC last month approved the deployment of troops to Mozambique to combat a conflict which began in 2017 and has killed thousands.
Ramaphosa said the SANDF personnel would be used between July 15 and Oct. 15 at an expected cost of 984 million rand ($66.3 million), a letter sent to the speaker of parliament showed.
In the letter. Ramaphosa referred specifically to authorising the employment of SANDF members and did not spell out how many of those would be soldiers deployed on Mozambican soil.