Jovem apresenta comprovativo de recenseamento para o Serviço Militar Obrigatório
Maputo, 9 Mar (AIM) – The Mozambican Defence Ministry announced on Friday that 255,700 young people registered for military service in the 2025 registration campaign, which ran throughout January and February.
The target was 221,141, and the final figure was 115.63 per cent of the target.
This looks like a great success, but only because the target was very modest. Under the law on military service, all Mozambicans, both men and women, should register in the year of their 18th birthday. The 2005 registration covered Mozambicans who celebrate their 18th birthday this year and thus were born in 2007.
The target set by the Ministry for this year is far below the projections of the National Statistics Institute (INE), which, based on the 2017 population census, indicate that 771,951 young people are expected to reach the age of 18 in 2025.
Hence, the Ministry’s target is only 28.6 per cent of those who, under the military service law, ought to register.
“Citizens who do not present themselves for registration during the period and at the locations indicated must regularize their military situation 30 days after 28 February”, Leonel said.
“Those who do not regularize their situation within the aforementioned deadlines will be considered as defaulters and sanctioned by law”, he added. Such threats are made every year and are almost never implemented.
The majority of the tens of thousands of people who do register for military service, will never join the armed forces (FADM), since the FADM does not have the capacity to recruit more than a few thousand people a year.
Fewer people registered this year than in 2024, when 280,851 young Mozambicans registered. Military officials blamed this decline on the mass protests against the general election results, and on the cyclones that have recently hit the nothern provinces.
(AIM)
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