Regional leaders will hold a summit in South Africa, chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa, this month to address the festering crisis in Eswatini by trying to launch a national political dialogue.

Eswatini's King Mswati has finally agreed to attend the extraordinary summit of the security organ of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on 21 July, after keeping the organisers guessing for weeks about his presence, sources said.

The Department of International Relations and Security Cooperation announced the summit on Thursday. It did not say what was on the agenda, but sources told Daily Maverick the main item would be the proposed national political dialogue in Eswatini. They said it had been unclear for some time if Mswati and his government would attend, but that this had now been confirmed.

The summit will be chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa as South Africa currently chairs SADC's security organ. The other two current members of the organ troika are Namibia and Botswana and so their presidents are also scheduled to attend.

Violent protests

SADC intervened in the crisis in the country last year after unprecedented violent protests in June which left scores of protesters dead and much infrastructure destroyed or damaged. After...