MOZAMBIQUE
Hug It Out
Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi enveloped Ossufo Momade, the leader of the country’s main opposition party Renamo, in a bear hug Thursday after they inked an agreement to end the decades of strife that have followed the country’s 15-year civil war.
“We are living in a moment of hope. This is the moment of our reconciliation,” President Filipe Nyusi told a cheering crowd in Gorongosa National Park, which was formerly a rebel stronghold and hotspot in the fighting, the Associated Press reported.
Nyusi and Momade agreed to a permanent cease-fire following years of negotiations to end sporadic fighting that has waxed and waned since the civil war ended in 1992.
More than 5,200 rebel fighters are now disarming, with a national election on the horizon. The hope is that burying the hatchet will allow the economy to grow and bring a measure of prosperity to a country where nearly three-quarters of the population survives on less than $2 a day.
There have been similar efforts in the past, but this time an amnesty for rebel fighters and other key measures were implemented before the actual signing – spurring optimism that the peace may hold.
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