Paramilitary group DAG intervened in Palma at the request of the authorities

O responsible, during a video conference testimony from South Africa in the course of the British Philip Mawer’s death investigation during that attack, DAG had a contract with the British Government since April 2020.

The goal was “to provide air means, because they had none” and “to train a special police force to use in fighting insurgents,” he said.

At the time of the attack, on March 24, 2021, the contract was ending, “but the Mozambican army asked to go help,” he added.

“The mission was to seek and save people, fight insurgents and repel them,” he said, stating that the orders were given by the Police Inspector General in Pemba.

The Mozambican government had declined to confirm the presence of private security companies in the fight against armed groups in the province of Cabo Delgado, north of the country, justifying the “sensitive” and “military” character of the matter.

For several days, the DAG flew with its six helicopters to rescue people and repel the insurgents from the local populations, engaging in combat. “We tried to reduce the bloodbath,” the executive president explained, revealing that they will have removed about 240 people.

Dyck revealed that the first of several rescue flights at the Amarula Hotel on March 25, “was made at the request of Mozambicans, because the district administrator [Agostinho Ntawali] was there with the family.”.

The authorities claimed that if high political leaders were captured, it would complicate the situation due to its value to the insurgents.

The high concentration of “white foreigners” in the hotel was another cause of concern for Mozambican leaders due to the risk of being kidnapped.

However, because the helicopters were based in Pemba, about an hour and a half from Palma, interventions were limited by the need to refuel regularly. Dyck confirmed that the various requests to TotalEnergies to use the Afungi complex as a base and fuel supply were rejected.

“ If we could rely on the area and have a constant fuel source, probably the result would have been different and we could certainly have saved more people,” said South African.

In addition to access to medical facilities if necessary, the complex was seen as a safe location for landing helicopters overnight.

With about 200 hectares of area, the Afungi complex is where TotalEnergies operations are concentrated, including a military force of 750 Mozambican military personnel.

During the investigation it was mentioned that there were also military helicopters MI8 and MI24 of the Mozambican Air Force operated by Ukrainian pilots.

Despite having greater capacity than those used by DAG, these were not used to fight insurgents or relief operations, Dyck said.

The South African said he believed that if the group had more fuel available and stayed in Afungi, he would have “come more often to the [hotel] Amarula and save more people, probably”.

The judicial inquiry in progress in Winchester, Southwest London, aims to ascertain the circumstances of the 59-year-old death of Philip Mawer.

The British died while traveling in a car that was part of a 17 - vehicle caravan that tried to escape the Amarula Hotel in Palma on 26 March 2021.

The vehicle was hit by a grenade thrown by the insurgents.

Mawer worked as director in Mozambique since 2019 at RA International, a Dubai-based company providing temporary accommodation and other logistics services.

Mawer was part of a group of about 200 people who took refuge in the hotel perimeter after the March 24 attack.

The GAD carried out several overcrowded flights to remove people, but the British and other foreigners gave priority to vulnerable people such as women, children and patients, today witnessed Nick Alexander, who was also on site.

Max Dyck denied that it was DAG rescuing the hotel manager and his dogs, as well as other staff from the establishment, claiming that it was another private company.

“I received phone calls from many places in the world asking to collect individuals, but my answer was that it was the Mozambicans’ decision,” he said.

Aministia International subsequently denounced the group for alleged racial discrimination in rescues and the use of firearms and explosives on civilian populations and infrastructures.

Alexander, who spoke through video conference also from South Africa, said that the Mozambican armed forces were “badly organized” and that the flight from the Amarula caravan hotel was seen as the only option facing the threat of terrorists.

The judicial inquiry, normal procedure whenever a British citizen dies of unnatural causes, takes place two days ago and is due to end on Wednesday.

The attack of March 24, 2021, which was held for several days, led to the suspension of the TotalEnergies project on the Afungi Peninsula, located about 10 kilometres from Palma, to explore a huge natural gas mine.

Since 2017, the province of Cabo Delgado faces an armed insurgency that has already caused more than 6,600 deaths and more than 1,2 million displaced persons, having registered sporadic incursions to the neighboring provinces of Niassa and Nampula since 2025.

Data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicate that armed violence in Cabo Delgado caused 1,401 displaced persons in August and that conflict incidents increased by 10% in the first half of this year compared to the homologous period.

The Islamic State, also known locally as al-Sunna wa Jamaa or Al-Shabaab, claimed the group's advances in Cape Delgado.