South Africa's Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is to lead an African Union fact-finding team to the Comoros this weekend after elections in the rebel Anjouan island.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa told AFP that "the minister (Dlamini-Zuma) will lead that AU team to the Comoros on Saturday."
The decision to send the delegation was taken at a meeting of an AU ministerial committee in Cape Town on Tuesday, which rejected the outcome of the Anjouan poll and declared it null and void.
The meeting decided to "dispatch a ministerial delegation to the Comoros to engage the Comorian authorities," a statement said.
Tuesday's meeting of the AU committee of countries overseeing developments in the Comoros deplored Anjouan's holding of elections not recognised by the Indian Ocean archipelago's federal government.
It expressed concern at the prevailing situation "which has the potential of seriously undermining the significant progress achieved so far in the reconciliation process in the Comoros".
The leader of the mutinous island, Colonel Mohamed Bacar, defied the federal government and staged a presidential poll on June 10 in which he was proclaimed winner.
The federal government had ordered the poll to be postponed because of unrest in Anjouan, one of three autonomous islands to make up the archipelago.
The AU committee comprised South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar. - Sapa-AFP