Many more are not yet discovered.
Andre is a foreign contractor who does not want his real name revealed for fear of repercussions. The memories of his three-day trial are etched in his mind.
He and his team had been working at the huge complex run by the French oil company Total a few kilometers north of Palma.
It was early afternoon and he had just finished showering at the Amarula Hotel when he first heard the shots. The hotel is just one of the few in the area and is popular with contractors.
Palma was attacked from three directions by Islamist militants known locally as Shabaab, or youth.
Shabaab has waged a brutal campaign in Mozambique’s northernmost province, Cabo Delgado, for four years, but so far almost all of its attacks have been against peoples, the province’s Christian population and security forces.
Things began to fall apart quickly when other foreigners living or staying in Palma began arriving at the hotel seeking refuge.
Shortly afterwards, militants destroyed a local cell tower and communications fell.
He desperately asks for help
Inside the hotel, guests and staff did what they could to avoid attracting insurgents to the hotel. All services, including food preparation, were suspended and electricity was cut off to reduce noise.
“We spent the whole afternoon trying to get help,” Andre says. Some guests who had satellite phones called anyone they could. But with the local army quickly invaded and without materialization of the Total complex, dozens of foreigners and Mozambicans began to take refuge and pray to survive the night.
“We spent the night under a strong fire,” he recalls.
The audio and video obtained by CNN from someone at the hotel speak of a terrifying scene, with loud bursts of gunfire splitting the night.
The next morning, the first helicopters began gliding over Palma, some firing at insurgents and others taking off a few to save them.
The helicopters belonged to a South African military contractor, the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG).
“Some DAG helicopters came and attacked the insurgent positions, which were near the hotel,” Andre says.
DAG CEO Lionel Dyck told CNN in an interview Tuesday that his men were aware of people who had entered the hotel while “flying through Palma looking for terrorists.”
“One of my pilots in the afternoon landed at the hotel inside the compound and told them I would take people out,” Dyck said.
“One helicopter made four trips, rescuing six people per trip, 24 in total,” Andre says. “We selected people with disabilities, illnesses, the biggest ones, and put them through first.”
But dozens of people were left harassed.
Andre, who is in his fifties, was one of the next six groups to be rescued. But he says DAG helicopters did not return that day.
“The last helicopter took off at 2.30pm, at 3.30pm, we realized they wouldn’t be back,” he says. “We kept calling, but on the other side we were told the helicopters had gone to refuel.”
“Bullets flying overhead”
In his interview with CNN, Dyck explained that daylight was the main topic. “[My pilot] took out 20 or 22 people, “he said.” It was too dark then and we had to leave. “
Dyck says his crews were still flying to Palma and rescuing civilians almost a week after the insurgents arrived.
Andre confronted himself another night not knowing if the terrorists would invade the hotel.
“All this time the bullets were flying overhead, hitting trees, we could hear explosions nearby, there was a real panic,” he says. “It was even more chaotic when we realized we should spend another night at the hotel.”
The food was running out and there was no sign of the Mozambican army or police.
“We tried to get help at any cost, each of us calling their contacts, whoever they were, but at the other end of the line they weren’t available to help,” Andre says. “It was horrible.
“We heard his cries of Allah-Akbar (‘God is great,’ in Arabic) all night. All night,” he says. “But we managed to get through it; and the next morning everyone was alive.”
He still does not understand why the insurgents did not attack the hotel.
“They didn’t kill us because they didn’t want to kill us,” he says, and wonders if the insurgents had been told to stop. “They were inside the hotel, they could have shot us if they wanted to,” he says.
A terrifying escape
Early Friday morning, Andre and the rest of the guests started thinking of ways to escape. “We debated whether to stand still, waiting for us to be attacked and killed like lambs or whether we should run for it.
“Around 11am the helicopters returned and we thought the evacuation would resume, but we thought the helicopters had returned to carry out more attacks,” Andre says.
“We realized we couldn’t stay there.”
A convoy of 17 vehicles was assembled.
“The first car in the column was an armored vehicle and in that car we put all the women and children and it was the car that drove the convoy,” Andre explained. “Immediately behind this car was me.”
Andre prepared his collection. About 25 people gathered, some trapped at the top of the vehicle.
In the middle of the afternoon, the convoy made some security, heading north towards Tanzania.
“There was no immediate fire when we left the hotel. I think they were surprised. They didn’t expect us to leave in these conditions.”
But minutes later, the convoy was ambushed.
“The shooting started when we got to the dirt road,” Andre says. “A mile later, I heard gusts grazing the top of the pickup, luckily they didn’t hit me.
“About 500 meters more and the armored car is hit by a bazooka. It oscillated a bit, but managed to continue,” adds Andre.
He was then hit: a bullet that penetrated the car door and hit his leg.
“There was blood everywhere,” he says, his voice trembling. “I asked the person next to me to hold on to the steering wheel and I still managed to drive three more miles with one leg.”
Along the way they saw corpses in the middle of the road. “I didn’t count them, but there were many.”
“My leg was destroyed”
Andre and the rest of the convoy drove north until they reached a fishing village near the Tanzanian border, only to stop when Andre almost fainted due to blood loss.
“My leg was destroyed,” he says.
It was only when they arrived at the beach that the group realized that many of the vehicles had not arrived.
“Of the 15 cars, only eight reached the beach. The others were left behind,” Andre explained.
Many of the occupants of the convoy are still unknown, a week later.
Mozambique’s Defense and Security Forces (SDF), which responded to the attacks, said they mourned the death of a “group of citizens who rushed to a convoy of vehicles to leave the hotel.”
Dyck says they told people at the hotel they would be there the next morning, but the occupants decided to take a look.
“They decided not to wait, maybe they had better information, but we knew the terrorists were out and we had fired at several and they were attacking us from outside.”
The group was eventually picked up by small boats, which took them south to Afungi, and Andre was later taken to a hospital in South Africa.
He faces further surgery and a lengthy rehabilitation. Despite his ordeal, Andre plans to return to Mozambique.
“Mozambique is a beautiful country. The problem, as in many other places in the world, is everything else.”