Sawt Falasteen - UK family demands answers after man killed in Mozambique jihadist attack

Philip Mawer was "unlawfully killed" after refusing to escape by helicopter, insisting women and children should be evacuated first, a coroner ruled.

Coroner Jason Pegg told an English inquest that despite being caught in the unrest, Mawer had the "character, the gallantry" to put others before himself.

The siege at the hotel where Mawer and scores of others were stranded came after fighters affiliated to the Islamic State group attacked Mozambique's northern port city of Palma in March 2021.

"Philip would have known of the atrocities being committed just beyond that compound... Philip knew that if the insurgents breached the compound wall he would have been killed," the coroner said.

Mawer, 58, from Shaftesbury in southwestern England, had been based in Mozambique for 18 months, managing the building of camps for workers involved in a nearby natural gas project.

The project was being run by French energy giant TotalEnergies, then known as Total, through its Mozambican subsidiary.

After those still at the hotel decided there was unlikely to be another opportunity to escape by helicopter, they made a desperate bid to leave by road convoy.

The "vulnerable" were put in armoured vehicles with Mawer declining a seat and choosing to drive his own vehicle with two passengers, the inquest in the southern city of Winchester heard

He was killed when his vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Colleague Nick Armstrong told the hearing they had realised that there was "no plan to rescue us".

"We were all very scared, but he (Mawer) was a strong chap," he added.

- Armed helicopters -

A lawyer for Mawer's family told the inquest earlier that an estimated 1,400 people died in the violence in Palma.

Max Dyck, chief executive officer of South Africa-based Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), said his company had provided about six armed helicopters to the Mozambique government to help in the crisis including evacuating people from the Amarula Lodge.

But TotalEnergies denied his company's requests for fuel, he said, adding that if they had had more fuel they would "quite possibly, probably" have flown more evacuations.

The coroner, who did not apportion any blame for Mawer's death, said that although the DAG helicopters had rescued 24 people from the hotel on March 25, their operations were under control of the Mozambican police and it was not under their discretion to carry out further evacuation missions.

He added that other organisations, including Total, had not been obliged to provide aviation fuel to DAG which he said had managed to obtain fuel for its operations from other sources.

After the verdict, Mawer's brother Bill told AFP he had been "selfless and heroic" during his ordeal.

But he said he and his other brother Mark were "deeply disappointed" by the inquest's failure to provide answers to their questions.

"Why did Total refuse fuel and landing rights to the helicopter evacuation effort. The court heard that many more rescue missions could have been flown with this support," they said in a statement.

They added that Total "chose to provide the inquest with only a short statement, but did not provide witnesses who could be questioned by us and by the coroner".

TotalEnergies declined to provide AFP with a statement after the inquest, but in the past has said that "all the staff of Mozambique LNG and its contractors and subcontractors had been evacuated", mostly by boat.

The company has also insisted it had supplied fuel for the rescue operation.

TotalEnergies suspended work on the $20 billion liquefied natural gas project near the border with Tanzania after the attack, but relaunched it in January.

It is now facing two legal proceedings in France, including a manslaughter investigation, after seven British and South African complainants accused it of failing to protect its subcontractors.

H.Nasr--SF-PST