"Given the rapidly changing situation, we are temporarily withdrawing a limited number of officials from the UK and its dependents," the British MFA said of the embassies in Angola and Mozambique.
However, he added, the two embassies will continue to do "essential work" and provide consular assistance to the British in those countries.
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said Friday that the spread of the new coronavirus in the region puts Mozambique at imminent risk, warning that the disease "does not respect borders", and decreed the closure of schools and the suspension of social events with over 50 people.
Nyusi announced the suspension of entry visas for Mozambique and the cancellation of "all those already issued", as well as the extension of home quarantine to all travellers, not just those from countries with active infections.
In our country, João Lourenço has already decreed the suspension of all commercial and private passenger flights to and from Angola and has banned the movement of people at land borders, as well as the docking and disembarking of passenger ships and their crews from abroad, in all national ports, for 15 days, starting at 00h00 this Friday.
The United Kingdom has no diplomatic representations of its own in the other Portuguese-speaking countries, with the exception of Portugal, where the declaration of a state of emergency made the British MFA urge those British who wish to return to do so "as soon as possible".
Although the United Kingdom (along with Canada, the United States, Venezuela and South Africa, and the Portuguese-speaking countries) was not affected by the suspension of flights from outside the European Union, most connecting flights were cancelled.
