Mozambique attacks: Provincial government in Pemba expects arrival of more Palma survivors – Lusa

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Mozambique attacks: Provincial government in Pemba expects arrival of more Palma survivors – Lusa

7:46 CAT | 11 May 2021

Paquitequete beach, Pemba. [File photo: DW]

Authorities in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, are bracing themselves for the arrival, over the next few days, of more people displaced by the March 24 attack on Palma, the governor said on Friday.

“We know of several citizens who are still far away, but who we know will reach [Pemba],” Governor Valige Tauabo told reporters after a visit to a transitional reception centre in the provincial capital.

The attack on the town of Palma, six kilometres from the Afungi gas megaproject, took place on March 24, causing dozens of deaths and injured persons, according to unofficial reports.

According to an update by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the number of displaced people registered after the attack on Thursday surpassed 40,000, of whom 43% were children, 491 of them unaccompanied.

“A lot of people who were reported missing and are reappearing. These people tell us what they went through and say that they were still hidden in the bush, ” the governor added.

There are still an estimated 11,000 people waiting at the gates of the gas project in Fungi and in the Quitunda resettlement village, who do not want to return to Palma town because of lack of security, and who are having difficulty getting to safety, according to the IOM.

Mozambican authorities regained control of the town, but the attack led oil company Total to indefinitely abandon the main construction site of the gas project scheduled to start production in 2024, on which many of Mozambique’s expectations for economic growth in the next decade are based.

Armed groups have terrorised Cabo Delgado since 2017, with some attacks claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State, in a wave of violence that has already caused more than 2,500 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project, and displaced 714,000 people, according to the Mozambican government.

Source: Lusa