Mozambique Town Remains Traumatised Weeks After Attack

Maputo, May 5 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th May, 2021 ) :Six weeks after it was raided by Islamic State-linked fighters, the northern Mozambican town of Palma remains deeply traumatised and hundreds of its residents flee each day, survivors and aid workers say.

The militants swooped on the coastal town on March 24, killing dozens of people and triggering an exodus that included workers on a multi-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.

The raids marked a major intensification in an insurgency that has wreaked havoc across Cabo Delgado province for over three years as the militants seek to establish a caliphate.

The violence pushed France's Total to suspend work on the nearby LNG scheme, one of Africa's largest. The dead include several expatriate oil workers.

After days of fighting, the government said its forces had driven out the extremists and that calm had returned.

But many people still feel unsafe and are leaving the area.

In recent days, hundreds have landed in the provincial capital Pemba on privately-organised rescue boats, a volunteer registering the displaced told AFP.

Viaze Juma, 34, a mother of four, arrived on Friday from Afungi, a peninsula near the heavily-guarded gas plant and five kilometres south of Palma, where thousands sought refuge during the attack.

"It's good that now I'm out of Palma. I'm safe but my house was burned down," she told AFP.

On the day Juma made it to Pemba, the United Nations announced that the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) had breached the 30,000 mark.