Mozambique: Rwanda extradition treaty payback for fighting jihadists?

By Charles Mangwiro

Posted on Monday, 13 March 2023 13:05
Rwandan troops depart for Mozambique to help the country combat an insurgency. (REUTERS/Jean Bizimana)

Rwanda has been helping combat jihadists in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, for nearly three years, in a country nowhere near its own borders. But a new extradition treaty signed by Mozambique and Rwanda earlier this month will aid in sending Rwandan asylum-seekers back to Kigali as a trick to net exiled government opponents on the run, according to the refugees.

“It’s a trap and it makes it easy for the [Rwandan] government regime to eliminate those who are deemed bad apples by the government back home,” Cleophas Habiyaremye tells The Africa Report in Maputo.

The chairman of the Association of Rwanda Refugees in Mozambique has criticised a new extradition agreement between Kigali and Maputo, saying the deal would facilitate the persecution of exiled Rwandan refugees in Mozambique.

The bilateral extradition and mutual legal assistance agreement was signed earlier this month and covers past and future crimes and sentences.