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Islamic State Claims Dayslong Attack on Mozambique Town

VOA News

   The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Monday for a dayslong
   attack on the northern Mozambique town of Palma that began last week
   and has prompted thousands of people to flee.
   The Islamist insurgents issued a statement Monday through its Amaq News
   Agency saying it was now in control of Palma, a town of about 75,000
   people, and that 55 people had died in the fighting. Those claims could
   not be independently verified.
   The Associated Press (AP) says it learned from the owner of a private
   military company hired by the Mozambique government that many of the
   victims in Palma had been beheaded. On Sunday, Mozambique officials
   said they were fighting the rebels in several locations to regain
   control of the town.
   Islamist insurgents began a coordinated attack last Wednesday on the
   town, which is about 10 kilometers from a multinational gas project run
   by oil majors, including French energy company, Total. The fighting has
   forced Total to evacuate the facility.
   The attack in the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado came "the very
   same day the French oil giant Total announced that it would
   progressively resume the construction on site after the implementation
   of additional security measures," journalist Yanick Machel, speaking
   from Maputo, told VOA's English to Africa. "The violence has shaken the
   development of the largest African liquefied natural gas project on the
   Afungi peninsula, led by the French oil giant Total," he said.
   Agence France-Presse reported Monday that the town was all but deserted
   after thousands of people fled the fighting.
   Many residents ran into the tropical forest surrounding the town to
   escape the violence.
   However, the AP reported that a few hundred foreign workers from South
   Africa, Britain and France gathered at hotels that quickly became
   targets for the rebel attacks.

   A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday,
   "We are deeply concerned by the still evolving situation in Palma where
   armed attacks began on 24 March, reportedly killing dozens of people,
   including some trying to flee a hotel where they had taken shelter."
   Henrietta Fore, director of the United Nations International Children's
   Emergency Fund said in a statement Monday that the town was hosting
   more than 35,000 people forcibly displaced from other areas of the
   province because of previous attacks, with half of those children.
   "We still do not know the full impact that the deadly militant attack
   in Palma, northern Mozambique, has had on children, but we fear that it
   will be brutal," Fore said.
   On Sunday, Omar Saranga, the spokesperson from the country's defense
   department said the terrorist group launched attacks claiming the lives
   of civilians. The attack was a "cowardly murder of dozens of
   defenseless people and caused material damage to some of the state's
   infrastructures," said journalist Machel explaining government's
   response on VOA's Daybreak Africa radio program.
   Islamist rebels affiliated with IS have been carrying out attacks in
   northern Mozambique since 2017. Earlier rebel attacks prompted Total to
   suspend work in January on a project to extract gas from offshore
   sites.
   The United Nations says the insurgency has left more than 2,600 people
   dead and displaced an estimated 670,000 people.
   VOA English to Africa's [1]James Butty contributed to this report.

References

   1. https://www.voanews.com/author/james-butty