Pact is reached in Mozambique but prospects for peace still uncertain

Pact is reached in Mozambique but prospects for peace still uncertain

With a handshake, Mozambique’s leaders hope to close the book on a decades-long conflict on Tuesday. But an election in October and new causes of violence mean lasting peace is far from assured.

After fighting on opposite sides of a civil war that erupted following independence from Portugal and killed more than one million people between 1977 and 1992, the ruling Frelimo party and former guerrilla movement Renamo signed a ceasefire that ended the worst of the bloodshed.