Mozambique: jihadist attacks in Palma, dozens of victims

• Hotel siege in Mozambique, at least 7 dead and one seriously injured

• Mozambique.

  For three days 180 people have taken refuge in a hotel under siege by the jihadists

• Save The Children's denunciation: "Children beheaded by Islamists in Mozambique"

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28 March 2021 Dozens of people were killed in the jihadist attacks carried out against the city of Palma, in northern Mozambique.

This was announced by the government, in the first official statement since the offensive in the north of the country began last Wednesday.

"Last Wednesday, a group of terrorists entered Palma and launched operations that led to the cowardly killing of dozens of defenseless people," Defense Ministry spokesman Omar Saranga explained at a press conference.

Seven of the victims were killed in an ambush during an operation to evacuate the hotel where they had sought shelter.

On the fifth day of the siege of the city of Palma by the rebels while news of the killing of dozens of civilians emerges, there is no news, at the moment, of the fate of dozens of foreign workers.

According to Human Rights Watch, some of the victims were beheaded.

According to local information, gunshots rained down on foreign workers trying to flee for cover and there are allegedly many deaths.

The battle for Palma highlights the military and humanitarian crisis in Mozambique, struggling for three years with a rebel revolt in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, whose toll, according to the UN, is over 2,600 dead and 670,000 displaced.

Meanwhile, Total has evacuated about a thousand of its workers from Palma.

The evacuation took place via a boat that arrived in the port of Pemba in the middle of the morning, as explained by the Secretary of State of Mozambique Armindo Ngunga.

Palma is located in a region where the Total oil company has a $ 20 billion investment project in the natural gas plant on the Afungi Peninsula.

Total, which had suspended operations in January for safety reasons, first announced on Wednesday the resumption of construction work on its liquefied natural gas (LNG) site in northern Mozambique, then announced the suspension of operations after the jihadist attack in Palma, near the border with Tanzania.

Total "does not complain of any victims" at the Afungi site, ten kilometers from Palma, but "will reduce the staff there to the bare minimum" and "the reactivation of the project planned at the beginning of the week is obviously suspended".

The coastal town of Palma fell into the hands of the militiamen who attacked it last Wednesday.

"The government forces have left Palma, the city has been conquered" by the jihadist forces, a security source said.

The local al Shabaab armed group has been active since 2017 and swore allegiance to ISIS in 2019.