French prosecutors said on Saturday they were investigating TotalEnergies for possible involuntary manslaughter in connection with a 2021 jihadist attack in Mozambique that left more than 1,000 people killed or missing. Survivors have accused the French energy giant of failing to protect its subcontractors.
The probe follows a legal complaint brought last year by survivors and victims' families.
They accuse the French energy company, which was developing a major liquefied gas project in the region, of failing to protect its subcontractors when militants linked to the Islamic State group attacked the port town of Palma in March 2021.
The attack lasted several days, claiming hundreds of lives. Some of the victims were beheaded and thousands fled their homes.
The survivors and families say TotalEnergies also failed to provide fuel so that helicopters could evacuate civilians.
Contacted by French news agency AFP on Saturday, a TotalEnergies spokesman reiterated a previous statement saying it "firmly rejects the accusations".
He said the company's Mozambique teams had supplied emergency aid and made the evacuation of 2,500 people from the plant possible, including civilians, staff, contractors and subcontractors.
'Known danger'
Seven British and South African complainants – three survivors and four relatives of victims – accuse TotalEnergies of failing to take steps to ensure the safety of subcontractors even before the assault.
The jihadist group that carried out the attack had been active in Cabo Delgado province since 2017 and was drawing ever closer to Palma.
"The danger was known, several villages had been attacked before the attack on Palma, and the jihadist threat was real," said a lawyer for the complainants, Henri Thulliez, when they filed their complaint in October 2023.
The complainants welcomed France's decision to open a preliminary probe into their allegations, with Nicholas Alexander, a South African attack survivor, calling it "a positive step".
TotalEnergies, he told AFP, bore "a share of responsibility" in the tragedy.
Depending on what the prosecutors find, the case will either be dropped or their investigation intensified with a view to bringing possible charges.
Vast gas deposits
TotalEnergies' project to develop a large gas field on the north coast of Mozambique was halted following the 2021 attack, but executives have since indicated they hope to revive it.
In November 2023, a group of 124 NGOs posted an open letter to dozens of financial institutions around the world, urging them to withdraw from the project.
"The humanitarian and security risks, as well as the complexity of operations in a conflict zone" were underestimated, declared the signatories, which included Greenpeace France and Oil Change International.
They also argued that the project threatened local ecosystems and the global climate, while failing to benefit local communities.
Mozambique is one of the world's poorest countries, despite having large natural resources. It has set high hopes on vast natural gas deposits discovered in the north of the country in 2010.
But campaigners say that international projects to exploit the reserves will aggravate corruption and insecurity in restive Cabo Delgado, as well as exploding the country's carbon emissions.
(with AFP)
