The attack on Palma, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, lasted several days and left a still unknown number of victims among the local population and among TotalEnergies subcontractors (AFP / Christophe ARCHAMBAULT)
A preliminary investigation was opened for involuntary manslaughter and failure to assist a person in danger against TotalEnergies after the filing of a complaint in October by survivors or families of victims of the bloody attack in Palma (Mozambique) in March 2021, indicated the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office, requested by the AFP.
After collecting the observations of TotalEnergies, which was leading a mega-gas project in the region and is accused of a series of negligence, and those of the plaintiffs, the prosecution will assess “the opportunity for a prosecution, a classification or further investigations,” adds the public prosecutor.
“This is a positive step forward and we are happy that the French prosecutor reacted quickly by taking our requests into consideration,” commented to AFP Nicholas Alexander, South African plaintiff who survived the attack, who denounces the “ share of responsibility” of the oil giant in this affair.
“We welcome the decision of the public prosecutor’s office in France,” Anabela Lemos of Justiça Ambiental, a Friends of the Earth activist in Mozambique, reacted to AFP.
She affirms that “the negative impacts and reckless behavior of Total in Mozambique go well beyond these days of March 2021” and hopes that the opening of this investigation “marks a first positive step in holding this company responsible for the deaths and destruction caused.
Asked by AFP, Me Henri Thulliez and Vincent Brengarth, lawyers for the plaintiffs, did not wish to comment. The latter are three survivors and four beneficiaries of two victims. They are of South African and British nationality.
Contacted on Saturday by AFP, a TotalEnergies spokesperson referred to what the group had declared at the time of filing the complaint, in October 2023.
The company then made a point of “firmly rejecting these accusations” and “recalling the emergency aid that the Mozambique LNG teams”, the name of the mega-project, “have provided and the means they have mobilized in order to allow the evacuation of more than 2,500 people” from the Afungi site, around ten kilometers from the center of Palma.
The attack on Palma, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, began on March 24, 2021. It lasted several days and caused a still undetermined number of victims to date among the local population and among the subcontractors of TotalEnergies.
Total was then leading Mozambique LNG to exploit a huge natural gas deposit in the Afungi peninsula.
The attack led to the suspension of this project representing a total investment of 20 billion dollars. The group’s CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, indicated in 2023 that he hoped to relaunch it before the end of the year.
The plaintiffs accuse Total of “having demonstrated negligence in terms of risk assessment, in contradiction with the public declarations at the time of Patrick Pouyanné who had assured that security was Total’s priority”, explained Me Thulliez to AFP in October.