MAPUTO, March 27, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – More than 180 people including
expatriate workers are trapped inside a hotel in a northern Mozambique
town under siege by insurgents for three days, workers and security
sources said Friday.
Several people were reportedly dead, according to witnesses and a
rights group, after the attack in Palma near a liquified natural gas
site in Cabo Delgado province.
French oil giant Total is the principal investor in the $20 billion
(16.9 billion euros) project — Africa’s largest — with six other
international firms including ExxonMobil involved in the area.
Jihadist militants began a raid on the coastal town on Wednesday
afternoon, forcing terrified residents to flee into surrounding forest
as LNG and government workers sought shelter at the Amarula Palma
hotel.
“Almost the entire town was destroyed. Many people are dead,” said a
worker on the LNG site speaking on the phone Friday evening after he
was evacuated to Afungi.
He did not give details of the casualties nor their nationalities.
“As locals fled to the bush, workers from LNG companies, including
foreigners, took refuge in hotel Amarula where they are waiting to be
rescued,” he said, asking not to be named.
Human Rights Watch said the attackers are linked to a group known
locally as Al-Shabab, which has no known direct link to the Somalian
jihadist organization with a similar name.
“Several witnesses told Human Rights Watch that they saw bodies on
the streets and residents fleeing after the Al-Shabab fighters fired
indiscriminately at people and buildings,” the rights group said in a
statement on Friday.
South African news website News24 reported that one South African
national had died during the attack.
Another worker from a company subcontracted by the Total said
helicopters flew over the hotel earlier on Friday trying to find “a
corridor to rescue the approximately 180 people trapped in the hotel”.
“But until nightfall many people remained on the premises while
militants tried to advance towards the hotel,” he said.
In an unverified short video clip shared on social media, an
unidentified man filmed the hotel lobby showing several people milling
around the patio.
The buzzing sound of a chopper in the background, he described the
situation in Palma as “critical”.
“We don’t know if we will be rescued,” he said, adding the hotel had
run out of food but still had water.
The Mozambique government on Thursday confirmed the attack on the
town and said soldiers had launched an offensive to repel the fighters
from the town, the hub of the giant gas project.
The fresh round of attacks began on Wednesday hours after Total
announced a gradual resumption of work at the liquified natural gas
project, which had been hampered by the ongoing insurgency in the
region.
Militants affiliated with the so-called Islamic State group have
raided villages and towns across the province, causing nearly 700,000
to flee their homes.
The violence has left at least 2,600 people dead, half of them
civilians, according to the US-based data collecting agency Armed
Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED).
In a statement Friday, the US embassy in Maputo condemned the attack
on Palma, pledging its commitment “to working with the government of
Mozambique to counter violent extremism”.