Pemba, Mozambique:
The crucial northern Mozambique town of Palma was all but deserted Monday, its residents fleeing by road, boat or on foot as the ISIS claimed handle just after a prolonged onslaught.
ISIS-linked militants attacked the town on Wednesday, escalating an insurgency that has spread bloodily across northern Mozambique given that 2017.
Dozens of men and women, according to the ISIS and the authorities, had been killed in what witnesses describe as a coordinated attack, and an unknown quantity had been nevertheless missing.
It is the closest raid but to a multi-billion-dollar gas project becoming constructed on a peninsula just 10 kilometres (six miles) away, by France’s Total and other power giants.
“The caliphate’s soldiers seized the strategic town of Palma,” ISIS stated in a statement posted on its Telegram channels.
It claimed its offensive aimed at military and government targets, killing dozens of troops and “members of Crusader states,” its term for Western nationals.
The town of 75,000 men and women in Cabo Delgado province was all but emptied of its population, stated civil society activist Adriano Nuvunga.
“The violence has ceased, but it is believed some of the insurgents have pulled back and some are still around in hiding,” he told AFP.
Witnesses stated scores of fighters had sneaked into the town ahead of the attack.
“The attackers arrived a few days earlier and hid in the homes of locals whom they paid,” stated one Palma resident, speaking from Mueda, exactly where he had taken refuge.
“The attacks started along the main roads to Palma,” he stated.
As police rushed out to attempt repel the invaders, the fighters inside the town mounted their personal attack, according to witnesses.
The United Nations condemned the assault on Palma and stated it was coordinating closely with nearby authorities to provide help to these impacted by the violence.
“We are deeply concerned by the still evolving situation in Palma where armed attacks began on March 24, reportedly killing dozens of people,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric stated.
Struggle to survive
Many survivors stated they had walked for days by way of forest to seek refuge in Mueda, 180 kilometres (112 miles) to the south, exactly where they arrived limping on swollen feet.
“Many people fell from fatigue and were unable to continue walking, especially the elderly and children,” stated one escapee in Mueda who did not want to be named.
Some survivors fled to the gas project website, from exactly where they are becoming sent to the regional capital Pemba by way of boat.
The government stated dozens had been killed in the militants’ attack, like seven men and women caught in an ambush in the course of an operation to evacuate them from a hotel exactly where they had sought refuge.
A South African is amongst these killed, his loved ones stated.
“Attacks started shortly after a large ship with food had just arrived,” one escapee told AFP by way of an on the internet message, referring to meals help deliveries to the farthest northern coastal town.
“They attacked the city and brought trucks to carry the food.”
Witnesses told AFP they initially targeted banks and the police station ahead of spreading across town.
Boatloads
Thousands of escapees had been arriving on boats on Monday in Pemba, the provincial capital about 250 kms to the south, according to sources there.
International help agency sources stated involving 6,000 and 10,000 men and women had been waiting to be evacuated.
The attack forced expatriate workers and locals to seek refuge temporarily at a heavily guarded gas plant positioned on the nearby Afungi peninsula.
“A significant number of civilians rescued from Palma are also being transported to Afungi site, where they receive humanitarian and logistical support,” side Total in a statement.
Sea Star, a big passenger vessel, arrived in Pemba on Sunday with about 1,400 men and women, mainly workers like Total personnel.
Pemba is currently packed with hundreds of thousands of other men and women displaced by the Islamist insurgency, which has uprooted practically 700,000 from their houses across the vast province.
The most current attack “will unleash a new onslaught of displaced people,” stated Chance Briggs of the British-based charity Save the Children.
The defence ministry stated late Sunday the safety forces had “reinforced their operational strategy” to include the attacks and restore normality in Palma.
In Portugal, Prime Minister Antonio Costa stated his government was monitoring the predicament with “great concern,” adding that he had been in touch with President Filipe Nyusi.
Ruthless campaign
The violent, calculated raid broke a 3-month hiatus in Islamist attacks broadly attributed to counter-insurgency techniques and the January-March rainy season.
Although the extremists launched their campaign in 2017, authorities say they started mobilising a decade earlier as disgruntled youths began to practise a stricter type of Islam, upset more than locals drinking alcohol and getting into mosques dressed in shorts and footwear.
Their bloody campaign has claimed at least 2,600 lives, half of them civilians.
The insurgents are identified locally as al-Shabaaab, even though they are not believed to have hyperlinks with the Somali jihadist organisation by that name.
The US State Department this month stated the group reportedly pledged allegiance to IS in April 2018. It named its leader as Abu Yasir Hassan, and declared him a worldwide terrorist.