PEMBA (Reuters) – Luisa Jose, a 52-year-old mother of five, says she was confronting Islamic State insurgents when they attacked the gas center city of Palma in northern Mozambique 10 days ago.
“I ran to save my life … they came from every street,” she told Reuters from a stadium in the port city of Pemba, with some of the thousands fleeing the violence.
‘I saw them with bazookas. They wore uniforms with red scarves … tied to their heads. ‘
According to Jose, the militants quickly invaded her hometown of Palma, in addition to major gas projects worth $ 60 billion.
Aid workers believe tens of thousands of people have fled the assault, which began on March 24. According to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, only 9,900 of the displaced are registered in Pemba and other parts of the province of Cabo Delgado.
Many can still hide in the surrounding forest, the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said, and those who came forward said they had seen the bodies of others who had died of starvation or dehydration along the way.
Some were also killed by crocodiles or killed in deep mud, according to a contractor whose employee saw both.
LEFT BEHIND
Most communications with Palma were cut off when the attack began, and Reuters was unable to independently verify witnesses’ accounts.
A spokesman for Mozambique’s defense and security forces declined to comment on Saturday, while calls to the national police remained unanswered.
The province of Cabo Delgado, where Palma is located, has been home to a seething Islamic insurgency since 2017 that is closely linked to the Islamic State. Clashes between the militants and government forces around Palma continued as early as Friday, security sources told Reuters.
South Africa said on Saturday that Mozambique’s neighbors would meet next week to discuss the uprising.
Mozambique’s government has said dozens were killed in the attack on Palma, but the full extent of the casualties and displacement remains unclear.
Fato Abdula Ali, 29, said she was divorced in the chaos of her husband and three children. Nine months pregnant, she could not keep up with other residents when they escaped and left her baby son alone in the woods. She cut the baby’s umbilical cord with a tree branch, she said.
The next day, she said, she stripped off her blood-soaked clothes and found another group of people taking turns carrying her to safety.
“My whole body aches,” she told Reuters at a hotel in Pemba.
Luisa Jose said she spent almost five days in the woods, eating bitter cassava tubers and drinking from cloudy pools of water before heading to Quitunda, a village for people affected by the major gas projects led by major oil companies, including France’s Total , has been moved.
From there, she says, she was evacuated by Total, but had to leave more than six family members, including her husband and a daughter, behind because there was no place on the boat.
In total, on Friday, all its workforce retrieved from its project site near Palma, two sources with direct knowledge of the activities told Reuters and left it in the hands of the military. Total declined to comment.
Jose has not heard from her family members since she left them. They are among thousands believed to be stranded in Quitunda, according to aid workers and diplomats.
Are they safe? Do they have shelter? Will they come back? I do not know, “she said.
Reporting by Emidio Jozine in Pemba; Additional reporting and writing by Emma Rumney; Edited by Alexandra Zavis and Ros Russell