The remains of a dozen expats who were caught by jihadist militants as they tried to flee a besieged hotel in northern Mozambique last month have been found under a mango tree. All had been tied up and beheaded.
Pedro da Silva, commander of the police station in the nearby village of Quitunda, said the bodies had since been buried in a mass grave at the spot. “In total there were 12. They were all foreigners, I don’t know what nationality, but they were all white,” he said. “They were tied up and beheaded here. I was the one directing the burial.”
He was standing near the entrance to Amarula Lodge in the town of Palma, where about 200 people, mostly foreign workers, were besieged for days by militants linked to Islamic State. A group of 60 tried to escape in a convoy of 17 cars on March 26 but were ambushed outside the lodge gates. Seven cars managed to speed past the insurgents.
Two of those killed have been identified as Philip Mawer, a Briton from Somerset, and Adrian Nel, a South African, but the full scale of the casualties and the whereabouts of those still unaccounted for remains unclear. The fate of those travelling in the ten cars that were stopped by the jihadists, and another 100 or so people who did not join the convoy, is equally unclear.
According to witnesses a number of South African contractors had taken refuge at the lodge.
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A spokesman for the state police said that he could not verify da Silva’s version of events, and that investigations were continuing.
Yesterday, in a belated sign of regional alarm over a worsening situation, the presidents of six southern African states met for emergency talks in Maputo, the capital. They said in a statement: “Such heinous attacks cannot be allowed to continue without a proportionate regional response”.
The attack on Palma, a town of 55,000 people swelled by foreign contractors working on the nearby $20 billion gas project run by the French energy giant Total, was the most brazen in an insurgency that began in 2017. Total evacuated all staff from its site on the Afungi peninsula last week, and said they would not return until the company was satisfied it was safe.
The militants were driven out of the town by the Mozambique security forces after a ten-day siege, but analysts fear that a week of killing and plundering has left them better equipped and more confident of success in their next attack. During their siege of Palma they stole dozens of vehicles, fuel, weapons, ammunition and tonnes of food aid.
The departure this week of South African mercenary pilots at the end of a year-long contract has left the state security forces without air power.
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Pemba, capital of the gas-rich Cabo Delgado province 200 miles south of Palma, could be the next target. “Pemba has thus far remained out of the reach of the insurgents,” the business intelligence group IHS Markit reported. “However, we expect to see attacks on nearby villages as a precursor to an assault on Pemba that would follow in two to three months.”
