‘We knew we weren’t being rescued’: Irish survivor of Mozambique massacre gives evidence at inquest

An Irish project manager led the evacuation of 192 colleagues from a jihadist attack in Palma, Mozambique, in 2021, after a day waiting for TotalEnergies to send help, a British coroner’s court heard.Gordon James Rhattigan gave evidence at an inquest into the death of his friend and colleague Philip Mawer (58) from Shaftesbury, England, who was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade which struck his vehicle as he tried to escape. The coroner, Jason Peggs, ruled that Mawer died of “unlawful killing”. Rhattigan was rescued by helicopter and survived the attack.Both worked for Dubai-based contractor RA International Group plc, which was contracted by TotalEnergies to help build its $20 billion liquefied natural gas project.READ MOREMawer was a senior leader responsible for overseeing the company’s operations, and Rhattigan oversaw the construction of an employee accommodation camp, approximately 12km from the gas compound.TotalEnergies maintains the project was operated by its Mozambique subsidiary, TEMPA1. Detective chief inspector Patrick Allen, giving evidence on behalf of the British Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism command, confirmed it was “right” to view the attack as the biggest terror attack since 9/11. A total of 1,354 people were killed.The first day of the attack “was just a normal day”, Rhattigan told the court.Mawer collected him from the airport on March 24th, 2021, and drove him to the Amarula Hotel to drop off his bags. They then made their way to the camp construction site, the court heard. Rhattigan recalled that in their last exchange, Mawer had invited him back to the hotel for lunch, but he declined and stayed at the camp to work, while Mawer returned to the hotel.Mawer collected Rhattigan from the airport on March 24th, 2021, and drove him to the Amarula Hotel to drop off his bags. Within hours of their conversation, insurgents linked to Islamic State, locally known as Al-Shabaab, attacked the town.In testimony, Rhattigan said he received a message from Lars Narfeldt, chief operating officer of RA International, telling him to “get all the staff together” and “go back to the hotel”, before then instructing them to stay put and lock themselves at the camp.About half an hour after the attack began, all communication was cut.That night, Rhattigan said he sheltered in the accommodation camp with the rest of the workforce. He cut holes in the perimeter in case they needed to flee into the jungle, the court heard.“We knew we weren’t being rescued” after the first day, he said. “The gunfire, the explosions were so intense.”Rhattigan’s statements during the hearing on September 24th, attended by reporters from environmental investigations outlet Land and Climate Review, described how he and his colleagues left the site on the second day. The Mozambican military guided a convoy of 192 people out along “old roads and dirt tracks” to the Afungi peninsula, the main base for Total’s LNG compound.There, Rhattigan said he approached security while the rest of the convoy waited and told them that they were expected and would be given sanctuary.“He knew I was talking rubbish,” Rhattigan said of the security guard. When TotalEnergies’ security asked, “Do you trust all of those people in those buses?” Rhattigan replied, “Of course I do; I’ve been working with those guys for a year”, he told the coroner’s court at Winchester.On that basis, security let all 192 people into the site after an hour, Rhattigan said. He claimed security later sent away local residents but allowed contractors to stay. Rhattigan and the remaining contractors were collected by helicopters from the LNG compound three days later.After his evacuation, Rhattigan told the court that he regained phone signal and found two messages from Mawer, both from the day the attack had begun. The first instructed him not to leave camp. The second said Mawer had been in contact with TotalEnergies, and the company had promised to send an armed convoy to collect them the next morning.Philip Mawer (58) had instructed Gordon James Rhattigan not to leave camp. Rhattigan said help from TotalEnergies never arrived. TotalEnergies denies this.Evidence presented to the court by the Mawer family’s legal team claimed the scale of the threat had been building for months.A report by the British counterterrorism command detailed how ISIS-linked insurgents had seized the island of Vamizi, some 25km from Palma, six months before the attack. Roughly 50 people were beheaded in the province in April 2020.TotalEnergies signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mozambican government in August 2020, establishing a joint task force to provide security for the LNG project in Cabo Delgado.The company has come under scrutiny over whether it did enough in response to the attack.The inquest heard that TotalEnergies allegedly refused to provide aviation fuel to rescue helicopters, which the Mawer family believe could have saved Philip Mawer. Adam Payter, the representative for TotalEnergies’ Mozambican subsidiary, disputed this evidence.Rhattigan said Philip Mawer was 'very kind, funny, down-to-earth', and 'honest'. Total’s representative also told the court that there was “no duty on or for TEMPA1 to cover persons that were not employed by it and remain outside [their area]”.In a statement after the inquest, TotalEnergies said it took note of the coroner’s conclusions, “which made no finding against TEPMA1 or TotalEnergies”. Total’s Mozambique LNG project was suspended after the 2021 attack. Construction resumed earlier this year, and production is expected to begin in 2029.When asked in court to describe his late friend, Rhattigan said Philip Mawer was “very kind, funny, down-to-earth”, and “honest”.Rhattigan now works for a fuel, aviation services and logistics firm in Somalia.