Tens of thousands feared displaced

TENS of thousands of people are feared to have been displaced after a deadly attack by Islamic State-linked insurgents on a gas hub town in northern Mozambique, aid agencies said, as rescuers searched for survivors on Tuesday.

Many of those fleeing were believed to have scattered into dense forest or to have attempted to escape by boat when Palma came under attack on Wednesday, aid workers told Reuters. Some waded out to sea to hide, one survivor said.

Mozambique’s government has confirmed dozens of deaths, including at least seven killed when militants ambushed a convoy of vehicles trying to escape a besieged hotel on Friday. Witnesses have described bodies in the streets, some of them beheaded.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it continued to receive reports of clashes in Palma and nearby areas on Tuesday.

“It’s a real humanitarian catastrophe,” Lola Castro, World Food Program regional director, told Reuters.

“People are ... scattered all over the place - by boat, by road.” Reuters has not been able to independently verify the accounts from Palma, a logistics hub for adjacent gas projects worth around $60 billion led by oil majors including Total. Most communications to the town were cut on Wednesday. Phone calls to Mozambique’s government and security officials went unanswered on Tuesday.

Islamic State claimed the attack on Monday via its Amaq news agency. A US official said it may show the group’s increasing “brazenness” in Mozambique, where militants are now seeking to hold towns.

Portugal will send 60 soldiers to help train armed forces in Cabo Delgado next month, state news agency Lusa reported on Tuesday. However, a defence ministry spokeswoman told Reuters a bilateral agreement on the training mission was still being finalised.

The district where Palma is located is home to around 110,000 people, according to UN estimates. They include about 43,600 who sought shelter there after fleeing attacks elsewhere in Cabo Delgado province, which has been home to a simmering Islamist insurgency since 2017.

Picture: REUTERS Lionel Dyck, who runs Dyck Advisory Group, a South African firm that works with Mozambique’s government, said his helicopters had come under heavy fire from insurgents wielding AK-47s, machine guns and mortars as they plucked people from the bush.