The descent into hell began at 4pm, when the distant crackle of gunfire broke the sultry afternoon calm.
In Palma, a picturesque coastal town in northern Mozambique, ISIS-linked militants launched an assault from three directions, quickly overwhelming local security forces.
Armed with rocket launchers, rifles and machetes, the terrorists swept through palm-lined streets, leaving beheaded victims behind them.
Just six miles from Palma stood a $20billion (£15billion) gas project operated by French energy giant Total. The development had drawn a large community of foreign contractors, including several Britons.
Now, they were fleeing with local workers and residents to the Amarula Hotel, a fortified compound on the edge of town. Once a refuge for homesick Westerners, it had become the last line of defence against around 100 heavily armed insurgents.
The assault on Palma began on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 24, 2021. It triggered five days of mayhem that would leave hundreds of people dead.
One of the victims was Philip Mawer, a 58-year-old from Somerset who worked as a project manager for RA International, a Dubai-based company contracted to build accommodation for gas workers.
An inquest into Mr Mawer’s death at Winchester Coroner’s Court this week disclosed previously unknown details of his extraordinary bravery. Among them was his decision to turn down a place on an airlift from the Amarula Hotel so that ‘women and children’ could leave instead.
The hearing has also provided fresh insight into the harrowing ordeal endured by those trapped inside the compound during the ‘Battle of Palma’, as they fought desperately to stay alive.
On the first day of the attack, during Mozambique’s hot season, Amarula Hotel employee Eusebio Alves Pinto was finishing his shift when he saw people rushing towards the compound.
ISIS-linked militants celebrate capturing the town of Palma in Mozambique in March 2011
People trapped inside the Amarula Hotel used white fabric to spell out the word ‘HELP’
‘I asked them what was happening? They said the situation was not good,’ he told local television station TVM. ‘Then I began to hear gunshot after gunshot.’
Mr Alves Pinto immediately turned around and joined the crowds seeking shelter inside the hotel.
For Palma’s residents, the attack came at an especially devastating moment.
The town was not only crowded with contractors working on the region’s gas industry; it was also sheltering thousands of people displaced by fighting elsewhere in Cabo Delgado, the predominantly Muslim province where an Islamist insurgency began in 2017.
Before March 24, the Amarula Hotel had served as a home away from home for foreign contractors. Its landscaped grounds featured 60 air-conditioned rooms, a swimming pool and a seafood restaurant.
At first, the roughly 200 people sheltering inside could contact their families and describe what was happening. But telephone and internet connections were soon severed.
In a bid to attract the attention of passing aircraft, they arranged white fabric in the courtyard to spell out ‘HELP’.
Beyond an eight-foot-high wall were fighters from an ISIS-linked group known locally as Al-Shabaab. Despite the name, it had no connection to the notorious Somali organisation that uses the same name.
Recalling his first 24 hours inside the compound, one foreign contractor recalled listening ‘to this battle through the day and night’.
By Thursday – a day after the initial assault – ‘mortar bombs were landing at our fence [and] the bullets were hitting the hotel,’ he told the BBC.
By this point, the battle against the militants had passed from the Mozambican military to the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), a South African private security firm hired by the country’s government.
Despite the ever-present threat of gunfire, the company began airlifting people from the hotel in helicopters, which could carry six people at a time.
They evacuated 23 lucky souls on Thursday. Brit Philip Mawer was offered a seat on one of the flights, but heroically turned it down.
Up until March 24, 2021, the Amarula Hotel had been a home-from-home for foreign contractors
British contractor Philip Mawer in the hotel’s grounds with the two dogs that were airlifted out alongside the hotel’s manager. He died shortly after during an attempted breakout
After another hellish night, Friday morning dawned with another helicopter evacuation flight carrying hotel manager Timothy Roberts – accompanied by his two German Shepherd dogs.
Mr Roberts has been heavily criticised for ‘abandoning’ the hotel, and Mr Mawer’s inquest this week heard claims he ‘locked the fridges and switched off the WiFi’ before jumping into the aircraft
But the South African defended his decision by insisting he had been acting on the orders of its owners. Meanwhile, the helicopter pilot insisted the dogs were put in the hold, so they did not take up spaces that could have been used by other evacuees.
READ MORE: Mother of British Woman Shot Dead by Her Father Demands New Probe
Back at the hotel, food and water supplies were running low, and the ISIS fanatics had encircled the perimeter fence.
In their desperation, around 170 of the remaining residents decided to attempt a breakout – gathering 17 vehicles in the courtyard before bursting out through a gate.
Mr Mawer took part in the convoy but declined a spot in an armoured B6 truck, opting to drive himself in a more lightly defended vehicle.
When the convoy screeched through the hotel’s gates, it was immediately met with a hail of gunfire from the insurgents.
Mr Mawer was struck with an RPG and killed. Also cut down in the convoy ambush was Adrian Nel, a South African who had been contracted to build workers’ accommodation camps.
His father and younger brother were also in the convoy but managed to escape and hide in the bush.
‘He died on a very violent and unnecessary day,’ Mr Nel’s mother, Meryl Knox, said later. ‘It’s just devastating, body numbing, mind numbing.’
Nick Alexander, a dual British-South African citizen, was in the final vehicle in the convoy that attempted to escape, with Mr Mawer just one vehicle ahead of him.
The bar area in the hotel shortly after it was recaptured by members of the security forces
Western contractors, staff and locals rapidly ran out of food during the siege. Pictured is the hotel’s kitchen
ISIS-linked militants streaming into the coastal town – forcing locals and foreigners to flee for their lives
He told Mr Mawer’s inquest that the decision to flee in convoy was ‘provoked’ by news that insurgents were at the south of the compound and ‘the manager leaving on the Everett chopper’.
Mr Alexander described breaking into a government vehicle to seize an AK-47 before heading to the bush to hide with two others.
They spent two days crawling through the dense vegetation before finally being rescued.
Only seven of the 17-car convoy made it past the insurgents. Between 40 to 50 people were inside – many shot and injured. At least seven people were confirmed to have been killed in the ambush, but witnesses believe it was many more.
The survivors scattered into forests, mangroves and nearby villages to avoid capture by the militants, and many were later picked up by DAG mercenaries.
While most of those sheltering inside the hotel had been rescued by the end of the week, it took soldiers several weeks to clear all the remaining terrorists out of Palma.
As they did, they came across countless horrors – including the bodies of 12 people laid under a tree. Each of them had their hands tied behind their backs and their heads cut off.
While the final death toll has not been established, more than a thousand people are believed to have been killed or abducted – the vast majority of them Mozambican civilians.
In the years that followed, French energy giant TotalEnergies came under heavy scrutiny for allegedly blocking a rescue attempt by the SAS. The company was also accused of failing to provide enough fuel for evacuation helicopters.
At this week’s inquest, TotalEnergies was said to have acted ‘contrary to the interests of Mr Mawer and everyone there’ and more people could have been saved if they had provided fuel for helicopters.
A car that was part of a convoy which broke out of the hotel – only to run into an ambush
A Mozambican soldier patrols through Palma in August 2021 after security forces regained control
In response, TEPMA1 – a TotalEnergies Mozambican subsidiary – denied having any responsibility for Mr Mawer and said it could not release fuel to DAG, the private military group working on behalf of the Mozambique government fighting insurgents and rescuing hostages.
Concluding Mr Mawer’s inquest, Hampshire coroner Jason Pegg ruled he did not have the evidence to find that corporations had any responsibility for evacuation.
‘There’s no evidence before me that any corporation had or should have assumed responsibility to formulate an evacuation plan for Philip or affect a rescue for Philip.
‘It might be that some within the hotel, perhaps Philip himself, hoped that in their time of crisis a corporation would come to their rescue.
‘But because that’s what they thought doesn’t mean there was any responsibility to do so. The speed of the attack was simply not anticipated.’
Addressing Mr Mawer’s two brothers directly, Mr Pegg said: ‘Your brother was a true leader.
‘He put his team and others first before himself and he did so at a time when it’s quite likely, very likely, he would have been in fear.’
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: How Phone Cameras Can Expose Affairs Without Millions Realising It