Jihadists kill dozens in Mozambique attacks
A woman, called Elsa by UK-based aid group Save the Children, stands with her family in a displacement camp in the northern Mozambique province of Cabo Delgado on January 26, 2021.
Dozens of people were killed in coordinated jihadist attacks in northern Mozambique’s Palma town, the government said on Sunday, four days after the raid was launched and forced the evacuation of thousands of survivors to safety in the provincial capital Pemba.
Seven people were killed in an ambush during an operation to evacuate them from a hotel where they had sought refuge, it said.
Foreigners were among those caught in the violence, but the government did not say how many were killed. So far, one South African is known to have died during the attack, his family confirmed.
On Wednesday, an unknown number of militants began attacking Palma, a town of around 75,000 people in the province of Cabo Delgado.
Human Rights Watch said the militants indiscriminately shot civilians in their homes and on the streets.
In the last three days, government security forces had prioritized “the rescue of hundreds of citizens, nationals and foreigners,” according to defence ministry spokesperson Omar Saranga, without giving a breakdown of the numbers.
The place is home to a multi-billion-dollar gas project being built by France’s Total and other energy companies.
Since October 2017, extremist fighters have raided villages and towns in the region, forcing nearly 700,000 to flee their homes.
