France launches the murder probe against totaling over the mosambic attack

Nanterre – French prosecutors said on Saturday that they had opened an investigation into the Totalenergies energy giant following a bloody jihadist in Mozambic.

In October 2023, the survivors and relatives of the victims of the attack near a major gas field in northern Mozambique launched legal actions against the oil and gas giant, accusing him of protecting his subcontractors.

The state -related Islamic militants killed dozens of people when they attacked the city port Palma in March 2021, sending thousands of people fleeing the forest around.

The attack in the province of Cabo Delgado lasted a few days. Some of the victims were beheaded.

The investigation for involuntary murder was launched on Friday and the failure to help the people in danger, the prosecutor from Nanterre, west of Paris, told AFP.

Totalenergies stopped his $ 20 billion project after the attack, but hopes to restart him.

There was no immediate reaction from the total.

In a statement published at the time of the complaint in 2023, the company “rejected these accusations”.

Seven British and South -African plaintiffs – three survivors and four relatives of the victims – accuse Totalenergies, who was known as total in 2021, of not taking measures to ensure the safety of subcontractors before the attack.

The criminal complaint filed in 2023 accuses Totalenergies, which developed a draft natural gas liquefied, near the palm, of involuntary murder and non -observance of people in danger.

Mozambic’s government said about 30 people were killed, but Alex Perry, an independent journalist who conducted a five -month investigation, has counted 1,402 dead or missing, including 55 total contractors.

The Al-Shabab Group (unrelated to the Somalian group of the same name) that made the attack was active in the Cabo Delgado province of 2017.

Total is also accused of refusing to provide fuel to a South African Security company who organized helicopter rescue from an besieged hotel during the attack.

Finally, the company was left without fuel, leaving people stuck inside.

“Climate bomb”

Janik Armstrong, a Canadian whose husband Adrian Nel was killed in the siege, told reporters in 2023 as he kept under two days at Amarula Lodge, with another 150 years “waiting for a rescue by the total or mozambic security forces that have never come.”

She said when they realized that “they were abandoned”, they tried to burst into a cars convoy, but they came under fire from the gunmen, who killed their husband.

Totalenergies said that “all the Mozambic staff and its contractors and subcontractors were evacuated”, largely by boat.

The company also insisted that it provided fuel for the rescue operation.

The attack triggered the forces in the countries of Rwanda and South Africa, who have since helped Mozambic resume control over a large part of Cabo Delgado.

Totalenergies hopes to restart the project late, and this week, the US import bank has approved a $ 4.7 billion loan for the company.

Totalenergies has a stake of 26.5% in the project, which aims to export gas mainly to Asia customers.

Some NGOs issued a common statement on Friday, appointing other European and Asian funders “to refuse to follow this toxic and irresponsible advance and to oppose the project restart, a climate bomb associated with numerous accusations of human rights violations.”