The Maputo government maintains the schools are too valuable to their education programme to become a victim to political tensions in Turkey.

Director of the Willow International School in Matola Zafer Soyertas says they’ve been urged by the Mozambique government to continue working to develop the country’s next generation.

“They told us they have no intention os closing us down and says we should continue giving our best,” he says

The school was build by Turkish businessmen in Mozambique who donated it to the Gulen Movement.

It has 850 pupils taught by 80 teachers, 15 of which are Turkish.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan maintains the Gulen Movement masterminded last year’s abortive coup against him.

The movement, that operates 170 schools around the world, strongly denies this.

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There’s no intention of closing them down as Recep Tayyip Erdogan requested when he visited Maputo last month.

The Turkish premier maintain the schools are terrorist cells run by exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen whom he maintains mounted a coup against him last year.

The colourful, secular Willow International School in Maputo looks nothing like a terrorist cell.

The 630 pupils are indeed currently playing politics.

They’re about to elect their head boy and head girl.

But as pupils go, their preoccupation  is preparing for the Cambridge exams.

Their parents, who pay about R45 000 a year to keep them here, fully support this.

Abdul Carimo Sau says there’s no chance of closing schools that are befitting so many children.

“Those schools have been in Mozanbique a long time and are doing  people a lot of good. We don’t want what is happening other countries to be brought here,” he says.

His message to President Erdogan is simple: don’t try to export your political problems to Mozambique.

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