Mozambique: Relatives ask government for help locating Palma survivors – Lusa

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Relatives ask government for help locating Palma survivors – Lusa

3:29 CAT | 05 Apr 2021

File photo: Alfredo Zuniga / AFP

A group of relatives of people from Palma have come together to ask the government for help locating their family members, who they have been unable to reach since the attack on the town on the 24th of this month.

“The initiative has come about because of our despair; we have been without information about the situation of our relatives for days,” one of the members of the group, who asked to remain anonymous, told Lusa.

The group of about 20 persons has been waiting since Wednesday at the gates of Pemba airport and at the port in the hope of finding their relatives among the displaced arriving in the provincial capital.

“The last people to arrive from Palma on Saturday told us that there are still a lot of people there, but it seems to us that the process of evacuating people is stalling. Today we were at the airport and at the port, but no new displaced people arrived, and we were told nothing,” he added.

The group plans to gather at the office of the Secretary of State for Cabo Delgado, Armindo Ngunga, on Monday to request a meeting with the representative of the central government.

“He is our father and, therefore, we hope that he will reassure us,” another member of the group told Lusa.

The town of Palma, about six kilometres from the multinational natural gas project led by Total, suffered an armed attack on March 24, which Mozambican authorities say has resulted in the deaths of dozens of people and the flight of thousands.

According to an update issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 9,900 people, almost half of them children, had arrived in the districts of Nangade, Mueda, Montepuez and Pemba by Friday (April 2).

In Pemba, the last large vessel carrying displaced people, a ship chartered by Total oil, on Thursday delivered 1,200 persons who had taken refuge near the gas project site in Afungi. Thousands more displaced were believed to be near the gas complex but unable to find transport to Pemba.

Violence in northern districts of Cabo Delgado began three years ago and is causing a humanitarian crisis with more than 700,000 people displaced, according to UN agencies, and more than 2,000 deaths, according to an accounting carried out by Lusa.

Several countries have offered military support in the field to Maputo to fight these insurgents, but, so far, this has not happened, although there are reports and testimonies that point to the existence of security companies and mercenaries active in the area.

Source: Lusa