A
"significant" number
of rebels were shot dead by Mozambican forces in operations to retake the northeastern city of Palma, which fell into the hands of jihadist groups after a bloody attack on March 24, the military said on Sunday. square.
"It is not yet over (...) but a significant number of terrorists have been killed,"
declared the commander of operations in Palma, Chongo Vidigal, before the cameras of on-board journalists.
Read also: Mozambique: the jihadists sow death in Palma
Eleven days ago, armed groups attacked the strategic port city in a carefully prepared raid, launched just a few kilometers from a multibillion-euro mega gas project led by the French group Total.
The attack, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, officially killed dozens of civilians, police and military.
The actual number of victims is not yet known.
The French group Total has evacuated staff from its gas site on the Afungi peninsula and the multibillion-euro project has come to a standstill.
In the devastated city of 75,000 inhabitants, whose first images since the attack were broadcast on local television, the military official added that he could smell
"the smell of the corpses of terrorists"
.
The footage showed a few bodies still lying in the streets, houses in ruins and vehicles in ashes.
A few civilians too, collecting food.
Read also: Jihadist attack in Mozambique: Total's gas site shut down
For several days, the soldiers have been trying to retake Palma, which fell into rebel hands on the night of March 26 to 27 after an attack considered the biggest escalation since the violence began more than three years ago.
Thousands of troops have been deployed, but since the first attacks in 2017, government forces have been unable to effectively fight the rebels terrorizing the impoverished Cabo Delgado province on the border with Tanzania.
Locally referred to as Al-Shabab ("the youth" in Arabic), they pledged allegiance to the IS group.
About 11,000 people were displaced by the latest attack, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
More than 670,000 people had already been forced to leave their homes because of the violence in the region, according to the UN.
The NGO Acled already recorded 2,600 dead before the attack on Palma, half of them civilians.
