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So far, some 5,300 internally displaced people registered in various districts of the troubled province of Cabo Delgado after fleeing the assaults, according to the UN.
More than 5,000 people fleeing an attack by an ISIL-linked group (ISIL) fled elsewhere in northern Mozambique, while a small group of victims arrived by boat in neighboring Tanzania.
Armed fighters attacked the northern Mozambique coastal town of Palma on March 24, ransacking buildings and beheading residents as thousands fled into the surrounding forest.
A United Nations spokesperson said that so far, 5,300 internally displaced people have been registered in different districts of Cabo Delgado province, which has been the center of a simmering insurgency since 2017.
Residents with their families in Palma anxiously searched incoming survivors for familiar faces. They circled around the barbed wire walls of the harbor and sat against the neighboring buildings.
“We don’t know if our relatives are on the arriving boats or not. But we are here, we are not giving up hope, ”Muza Momadi told AFP news agency while waiting for his mother and brother.
Since Tuesday, more than 300 victims of the attack have arrived in Pemba, the provincial capital, by plane and boat, a senior Mozambique-based humanitarian official told Reuters news agency.
A boat carrying 1,000 more people, including injured, is expected to arrive in Pemba on Wednesday evening after its departure from a gas project site near Palma was delayed, three people briefed on the rescue operation said.
Fighters from armed groups struck the coastal city of Palma, adjacent to $ 60 billion gas projects, with a three-pronged attack last Wednesday. The fighting continued as recently as Tuesday, security sources involved in the rescue efforts and the UN said.
Most communications in the city have been cut and it is not possible to independently verify Palma’s accounts.
Cheeky assault
In the village of Kilambo across the border in Tanzania, another boat with 45 people on board docked on Tuesday.
Others seeking shelter in Tanzania have failed to cross the border due to difficult river crossings, UN aid officials said.
The attack likely displaced tens of thousands of people, humanitarian groups said, with people scattering through dense forests or trying to escape by sea.
The government of Mozambique has confirmed dozens of deaths, including at least seven killed when fighters ambushed a convoy of vehicles trying to escape from a besieged hotel. Witnesses described bodies in the streets, some beheaded.
President Filipe Nyusi said in an event unrelated to the Palma attack on Wednesday that the government would approach the enemy with “force”, describing the attack as not being the largest the country has seen.
ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday through its Amaq website.
The Soufan Center, a US-based security think tank, said the latest attack could lead to greater overseas intervention in Mozambique as the government is unable to contain the violence.
US Army special forces are already in Mozambique and French troops are monitoring the escalation of the situation from the neighboring French island of Mayotte, he noted.
Portugal is preparing to send a small contingent of soldiers to help train the armed forces in Cabo Delgado next month, the official Lusa news agency reported.
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