PEMBA (Reuters) – Luisa Jose, a 52-year-old mother of 52, says she came face to face with insurgents linked to the Islamic State when they attacked the city of Palma’s gas center, north of Palma Mozambique, 10 days ago.
“I ran to save my life … they came from all the streets,” he told Reuters from a stadium in the port city of Pemba that housed some of the thousands who fled the violence.
“I saw them with bazookas. They wore uniforms with red scarves … tied around their heads ”.
Jose said the militants quickly overtook his hometown, Palma, alongside huge $ 60 billion worth of gas projects.
Assistance workers believe tens of thousands of people fled the attack, which began on March 24. However, only 9,900 of the displaced had been registered in Pemba and other parts of Cabo Delgado province, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
Many could still be hiding in the surrounding forest, the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said, and those who emerged have reported seeing bodies of other people who died of starvation or dehydration along the way.
Some were also killed by crocodiles or died in deep mud, according to a contractor whose employee witnessed both.
LEFT BACK
Most communications in Palma were cut off when the attack began, and Reuters has not been able to independently verify the accounts of witnesses.
A spokesman for Mozambique’s defense and security forces declined to comment on Saturday, while calls to the national police went unanswered.
The province of Cabo Delgado, where Palma is located, has been hosting a slow-moving Islamist insurgency since 2017 that is now linked to the Islamic State. Clashes between militants and government forces around Palma continued on Friday, security sources told Reuters.
South Africa said on Saturday that Mozambique’s neighbors would meet next week to discuss the insurgency.
The Mozambican government has said dozens of people were killed in the attack in Palma, but the full extent of the casualties and displacement is still unclear.
Fato Abdula Ali, 29, said she was separated from her husband and three children in the chaos. Nine months pregnant, she was unable to keep up with the rest of the residents as they fled and gave birth to their lone son in the bush. He cut the baby’s umbilical cord with a tree branch, he said.
The next day, she said, she stripped off her blood-soaked clothes and found another group of people taking turns carrying her safely.
“My whole body hurts,” he told Reuters at a Pemba hotel.
Luisa Jose said she spent nearly five days in the jungle, eating bitter cassava tubers and drinking cloudy water before reaching Quitunda, a village for people relocated by mega gas projects led by major oil companies, including the French Total.
From there, she says, Total was evacuated but had to leave behind more than six family members, including her husband and a daughter, because there was no room on the boat.
On Friday, Total withdrew all its remaining staff from the project site near Palma, two sources with direct knowledge of the site’s operations told Reuters, leaving it in the hands of the military. Total declined to comment.
Jose has not heard from his family members since he left them behind. According to assistance workers and diplomats, they are among thousands trapped in Quitunda.
“Are they safe? Do they have shelter? Will they be back? I don’t know, “he said.
Report by Emidio Jozine in Pemba; Additional reports and writing by Emma Rumney; Edited by Alexandra Zavis and Ros Russell