The French oil company TotalEnergies should, together with the Armed Forces and Defense of Mozambique, take responsibility for the 1,357 deaths resulting from the terrorist attack that took place between March 24 and April 5, 2021, in the town of Palma, in the province of Cabo Delgado, suggests the writer and journalist, Alex Perry. He considers it the worst terrorist attack in the history of oil and gas in 20 years, comparable only to that of September 11, 2001, in the USA.

"The reason Total is responsible is because when the rebels attacked, Total left, closed the gates. The managers got on helicopters and left. They abandoned everyone, the contractors, the subcontractors and as a result 1,357 people died," he said.

The US researcher said that the French oil company promised people safety, but shirked responsibility when it came to taking action.

"Total had guaranteed security, and when the attacks happened it didn't keep its promise and abandoned the people. It let people die," said the researcher, quoted on Monday by RDP Africa.

The worst attack in oil and gas history

The source said that the American journalist carried out investigative work in Palma which reveals, for the first time, the number of civilians killed during the attack, more than two years later. The terrorist incursion is classified by him as one of the most serious in several decades.

"The figures are quite alarming. My team went to 13,686 houses. It took five months of difficult work, especially during the rainy season. They discovered 1,357 dead or missing. We assume that the missing are dead after two years, and another 224 have been kidnapped. That's a combined total of 1,581. Among the dead and missing, 373 were beheaded, 399 were shot, and six were characterized as miscellaneous. There were two elderly people burned alive in their home, four people died fleeing, 24 deaths we still don't know about. The point is that we have identified 95% people, we have 471 missing, that's among the civilian population of Palma. Among the companies working for Total and their workers, ten were beheaded in a mass beheading outside the Amarula Hotel and there are at least 45 others who were killed. It's important to know that the killings were indiscriminate. The ages range from two months to 105 years old; 188 children were killed, classified as under 18. Some were beheaded, shot, drowned, kidnapped, or are simply missing. So it's an indiscriminate massacre. To put these figures into context, there is no set of murders other than 9/11 that comes close to this crime. September 11 was about 3,000 people, this [Palma] is about half that. Nothing from Syria or Afghanistan or Iraq in the last 20 years comes close to that. This is the second worst terrorist attack that has ever happened. It's the worst disaster in the 164-year history of oil and gas," said the American journalist.

It is on the basis of these findings that Alex Perry blames the FADM and, in particular, TotalEnergies for failing to prevent the deaths of civilians in the attack on Palma.

"Nobody is saying that Total killed people. Al Shabab has killed people. The point is that no one would be working in Afungi and Palma if Total hadn't guaranteed their safety. Total entered this project in 2019. By then the civil war had been going on for two years, so everyone knew it was a war zone they were entering and that comes with heightened responsibilities. Total hired a group of Canadian human rights lawyers to tell them what their responsibilities were. The lawyers said that they extended to their staff and their subcontractors and, in fact, to the entire town of Palma and anyone the project affected. It's like watching 20 billion dollars go to a remote village in Mozambique, basically adjacent to the small town of Palma, and Total ignoring it. They have hired 600 soldiers from the Mozambican army to protect the 25-kilometer radius around Afungi, which includes the entire village of Palma. Total's leader, Patrick Pouyanné, repeatedly said that the security of this area was his top priority [...] but he let people die," he pointed out.

The writer and journalist who investigated the deaths in Palma confronted TotalEnergies with this data, and the oil company took refuge in silence. RDP Africa says it has contacted the multinational's office in Mozambique, which has referred any clarifications to its headquarters in Paris, France. RDP also says that it is looking to hear from the Ministry of Defense.