Businesses for recapture of the city of Palma (northeast), which fell into the hands of jihadist organizations After their bloody raid on March 24, the Mozambican armed forces carried out. A “large” number of guerrillas were killed, officials said.
The operations “have not ended yet (…) but a large number of terrorists have been killed,” Tsongo Witzigal, Palma’s chief of operations, told cameras.
Eleven days ago, armed groups stormed the small town, where a strategically designed port is located just a few kilometers from the gas field that was to be exploited by a joint venture under the French Total, a large project worth billions of euros.
In the city of 75,000 people, which has suffered enormous damage, as recorded by Mozambican television cameras, the army officer said that the “smell (decomposition) of the corpses of terrorists is now felt”.
The shots show corpses still lying in the streets, houses that have been reduced to rubble, cars that have been turned into rubbish. And some civilians, picking up food, as broadcast by the French Agency and rebroadcast by the Athenian News Agency.
The attack, claimed by Islamic State (IS), killed “dozens” of civilians, police and soldiers, according to authorities. No more accurate account has been given. The exact number of victims is not yet known.
The French group Total has removed its staff from the gas field on the Afungi Peninsula and the project has been suspended.
For several days now, the Mozambican army has been trying to retake Palma, which fell to the guerrillas on the night of March 26-27. The attack on the city is characterized by the most serious escalation since the violent incidents in the area began three years ago.
Thousands of troops had been deployed in the area, but since the first attacks in 2017, government forces have been unable to deal effectively with insurgents terrorizing the impoverished province of Cambo Delgado, which borders Tanzania.
Known in Mozambique as “Shebab” (“the youth” in Arabic), they have sworn allegiance to the IK.
At least 11,000 people have been displaced by the Palma attack, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). More than 670,000 people have already been forced to flee their homes due to violence in the region, according to the UN.
The non-governmental organization Acled had counted 2,600 deaths before the attack in Palma, with half of the victims being civilians.
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