2023-10-10 10:20:19
Seven survivors or families of victims of a bloody jihadist attack in Palma (Mozambique) in March 2021 have filed a complaint for “manslaughter and failure to assist a person in danger” against TotalEnergies. This complaint was transmitted to the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office (Hauts-de-Seine), announced Tuesday, October 10, Me Henri Thulliez, lawyer for the plaintiffs.
South African and British plaintiffs
The latter are three survivors and four beneficiaries of two victims. They are of South African and British nationality. The French oil group, which was still called Total at the time and was leading a mega gas project in the region, is accused of a series of negligence and of not having ensured the safety of its subcontractors.
The Palma attack, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, began on March 24, 2021, lasted several days and left a still undetermined number of victims to date among the local population and among TotalEnergies subcontractors.
Maputo only provided a death toll of around thirty victims, but according to an independent journalist, Alexander Perry, who investigated for five months in Palma between November 2022 and March 2023, the death toll stands at 1,402 civilians. or missing, including 55 subcontractors.
An abandoned project
Several of them took refuge in a hotel on the outskirts of the city, the Amarula Lodge, which was besieged for several days by the jihadists. At least seven people were killed while trying to escape in a convoy.
Total was then leading a mega project, Mozambique LNG, to exploit a huge natural gas deposit, and was located in the Afungi peninsula, around ten km from the center of Palma.
The attack led to the suspension of this project representing a total investment of 20 billion dollars. The group’s CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, recently indicated that he hoped to relaunch it before the end of the year.
The plaintiffs accuse Total of“having shown negligence in terms of risk assessment, in contradiction with public declarations at the time of Patrick Pouyanné who assured that security was Total’s priority”I explained to Me Thulliez.
Lack of preventive measures
The complaint is based in particular on two reports from risk consulting companies, made a posteriori, and which highlighted the absence of preventive measures. “The danger was nevertheless known, several villages had been attacked before the attack on Palma, and the jihadist threat was real”underlines Me Thulliez.
In 2019, a company competing with TotalEnergies, Exxonmobil, had also given up investing in the project and repatriated its staff.
As for the “non-assistance in danger”, Total is accused of refusing to supply fuel to a private South African military company, DAG, which had begun evacuating people from Amarula Lodge by helicopter. She had to stop the evacuations for lack of fuel, says Me Thulliez.
A guerrilla war launched in 2017
The carefully planned attack on Palma, a port city of 75,000 people, marked a major intensification in a guerrilla war launched in 2017 by jihadist groups, known locally as al-Shabab.
The fighting has since left several thousand dead and hundreds of thousands displaced in this province of Cabo Delgado, poor but rich in natural gas.
Since July 2021, thousands of troops from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been deployed to support the Mozambican army, and have since helped regain control of large parts of Cabo Delgado.
The second criminal complaint
This is the second criminal complaint against the French oil giant in a few days. On October 2, four environmental defense associations filed a complaint against the group and its EACOP oil project in Tanzania and Uganda for « climaticide » .
The group is accused of involuntary attacks on personal integrity, destruction, damage or deterioration of property belonging to others likely to create a danger for people, and involuntary homicide.
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