Maputo — The jihadist attack against the town of Palma in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado in March 2021, resulted in the death or disappearance of almost 1,200 people, according to detailed research, coordinated by American writer and journalist Alex Perry.
The terrorists, known locally as Al-Shabaab, and who have pledged allegiance to the self-styled "Islamic State' (ISIS), attacked Palma town shortly after 14.00 on 24 March 2021.
The town is near the Afungi Peninsula, where a consortium headed by the French company Total, planned to build natural gas liquefaction plants. The jihadist attack led Total to withdraw its staff, and to declare "force majeure'. Although Mozambican government forces and their allies from Rwanda and SADC (Southern African Development Community) subsequently drove the terrorists out of Palma, it remains unclear when the natural gas project will resume.
Initially, Alex Perry concentrated his research on Total's sub-contractors and workers, and civilians besieged in the Amarula Lodge hotel. This report criticized Total for abandoning its workers and the population of Palma, despite its promises of security and warnings that an attack was imminent.
But the first research did not cover the bulk of the Palma population, who had fled from the town after the attack.
When the displaced population returned in mid-2022, Perry's team resumed its research, and found that what had happened to Palma town was a massacre on an enormous scale.
According to a summary of the research, published in Tuesday's issue of the independent newssheet "Carta de Mocambique', the team undertook a door-to-door survey, in which they visited 13,686 houses.
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The survey found that 1,193 people had been murdered, or were missing, presumed dead, and a further 209 people had been kidnapped. Among the dead and missing were 156 children under the age of 18. 24 children were among those kidnapped.
Perry's report notes that these figures do not include the wounded, or the dead among the workforce of Total's contractors. Perry's earlier report concluded that at least 55 members of the workforce were murdered.
The current report notes that neither Total nor the Mozambican state did any body count to assess deaths among the Palma civilian population.
Perry concludes that "although comparisons of this type are rather disagreeable, to put it into context, it is worth noting that these numbers make the terrorist attack against Palma town the worst attack since 11 September 2001 (the attacks against New York and Washington), and the bloodiest disaster in the 164 years of the history of the petroleum and gas industry'.
