Plaintiffs assert that the French corporation neglected to facilitate evacuation missions during a 2021 Islamist attack and was irresponsible in risk assessment.
The survivors of a terrorist assault that took place in Mozambique in 2021 that left dozens of people dead and forced the firm to cease the largest natural gas project in Africa sued the French multinational conglomerate TotalEnergies earlier this week.
Seven survivors, who are South African and British citizens, allegedly accused the oil company of “involuntary manslaughter and failure to provide assistance to a person in danger” when they were attacked by Islamist insurgents, according to a number of reports on Tuesday.
A $20 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) development project by TotalEnergies was underway in Mozambique when militants launched an attack on the coastal town of Palma in March 2021. After the tragedy, the corporation halted the Mozambique LNG project’s operations, and it has just lately hinted that investment activities may get back up.
About thirty victims were reported by the country of southern Africa. But according to independent journalist Alexander Perry, who looked into the incident in Palma between November 2022 and March 2023, 1,402 civilians—including 55 Total group subcontractors—died or went missing.
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The Amarula Lodge, a hotel on the outskirts of the port city in the Cabo Delgado region that had been under jihadist siege for several days, is where several of the victims are alleged to have sought refuge.
The French oil firm, then known as Total, was accused of failing to warn of the attack by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which included four relatives of two of the fatalities and three former subcontractors who survived the hotel siege. The lawsuit also claimed that Total lacked a viable evacuation strategy and declined to give gasoline to Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), a South African private military firm that attempted a helicopter rescue after the assault.
“It is not alleged that TotalEnergies directly caused the deaths of victims, but rather that the company did not act in accordance with the expected diligence standards of a professional in its responsibilities,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said in a statement, according to Reuters.
In a statement on Wednesday, TotalEnergies insisted that it had a security strategy in place and that it had evacuated more than 2,500 people from the Afungi site, where the Mozambique LNG project is located, to refute the accusations.
However, the business claimed it did not back the DAG-led evacuation effort since the private military contractor had been charged by a number of human rights organisations with conducting “serious” crimes against the local populace.
