Mozambique Defence Ministry update on rebel attack

Defence forces in Mozambique are battling to contain "criminal attacks and restore normality" in the northern town of Palma after five days of fighting between rebels and the army, a defence ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.

Speaking in the capital Maputo, Colonel Omar Saranga said that the actions of a "group of terrorists" had resulted in the "cowardly assassination of dozens of defenceless people."

Reports from the region have detailed the killings of dozens of civilians and the littering of bodies on the streets of Palma.

Among these were seven people leaving a hotel in a convoy that was "ambushed by the terrorists," Saranga said.

He added that hundreds of people had been rescued by defence forces over the past three days.

The battle for Palma highlights the military and humanitarian crisis in this Southern African nation on the Indian Ocean.

The three-year insurgency of the rebels, who are primarily disaffected young Muslim men, in the northern Cabo Delgado province has taken more than 2,600 lives and displaced an estimated 670,000 people, according to the UN.

The attacks in Palma started on Wednesday just hours after the French energy company Total announced that it would resume work outside the town on its huge natural gas project at Afungi, near Mozambique’s northeastern border with Tanzania.

Earlier rebel attacks prompted Total in January to suspend work on the project to extract gas from offshore sites.