At the day-long meeting in Harare, leaders of Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique said they had discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and the security situation in southern Africa, including Lesotho, where Prime Minister Thomas Thabane resigned this week after months of pressure over his alleged role in the murder of his former wife.
The meeting took place under the banner of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) security committee.
Zimbabwe's president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, the current chair of the security bloc, refused to confirm if his country or the region would deploy armed forces to Mozambique.
Alexander Rusero, a former international relations and security studies lecturer at Harare Polytechnic College, said he is confident the SADC will send troops to Mozambique.
"And one way or the other, the regional bloc has to intervene because SADC is more of a security architecture than it is a development community, which is in its name."
