Mozambique: Estimated 1,200 killed in March 2021 attack on Palma – investigation

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Mozambique: Estimated 1,200 killed in March 2021 attack on Palma – investigation

7:57 CAT | 27 Jun 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

An investigation estimates that around 1,200 people died or disappeared in the rebel attack on Palma, northern Mozambique, in March 2021 and in the violence of the following days, the author, US writer and journalist Alex Perry told Lusa on Monday.

“In total, 1,193 people were killed or are missing (presumed dead), and another 209 people were kidnapped,” and among the dead, there are 156 under the age of 18, including babies and children, he said on his personal website.

There are 432 missing persons, 366 people shot dead, and 330 beheaded, according to the survey results published last week.

No entity (governmental or otherwise) has to date presented a balance sheet of the number of victims of the attack that paralysed the gas project led by TotalEnergies and aggravated the humanitarian crisis in the province, which had been under fire from insurgents since 2017.

The gap seemed so “staggering” to the author that he used $20,000 (€18,300) from a prize (George Polk Awards) obtained from another report he wrote on the attack to return to Cabo Delgado and fund the investigation.

“You heard about hundreds of deaths, but there was no balance sheet,” he recalls.

The figures were obtained door-to-door from 13,686 homes in Palma and 15 surrounding villages between November 2022 and March this year by a team hired by Alex Perry “taking care” about accuracy and mastery of local languages.

“We were meticulous: 97% of the deaths are identified with name, age, gender, address and by how they died,” he says.

Alex Perry estimates that the number is higher because the analysis of the results was “conservative”, excluding dubious information, and because it only covers civilians (in the communities surveyed), excluding casualties among military personnel, insurgents and workers at the gas project.

Asked what he wants to achieve with the publication, he said that as a journalist, he is simply “establishing a fact”.

“What people do with facts is no longer my job,” he said.

READ: Palma: Volunteers set up network to locate missing persons

Perry adds to the collection a condemnatory opinion of TotalEnergies, holding it responsible for what happened: “We’re not saying Total killed anyone, but it promised security,” which only existed for the fenced-off area of the project, he accuses, and with Mozambican forces that never showed the ability to protect the locals.

“You can’t pretend to be a good neighbour” and then “not pay attention” when more than a thousand people die or have no interest in counting the dead, Perry noted.

The author shared the data with the French oil company and Mozambican government authorities but said he had not received any response.

The French oil company told Lusa it was “not in a position to comment on the data” of the investigation and, on the other hand, it referred responsibility for the security of the project and the surrounding area, at that time, to a joint force of the Mozambican ministries of Defence and Interior.

Even so, until all the staff were withdrawn from Afungi, the consortium “played an active role in assisting the population” to whom it gave water, food, urgent medical support and ensured transfers by air and sea “for the most vulnerable, especially women and children”.

Since then, “TotalEnergies has expressed its solidarity with the government and the population”, he added.

Lusa also sought reactions and clarifications from the different ministries of the Mozambican government but has yet to receive a response.

Alex Perry says that what he calls “a massacre” in Palma will give rise to a book that he hopes to launch within two years, with a “detailed reconstitution” of the facts and an overview of “the behaviour of the oil and gas industry, in which I ask why it is so associated to violence.”

And Palma illustrates the work because he considers it to be among “the worst” that has ever happened, he concludes.

Source: Lusa