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Pemba, Mozambique. – Sporadic clashes broke out in Palma yesterday as thousands of residents hid around the besieged northern Mozambique town, scrambling to escape the area overrun by jihadist militants, aid agencies said.

Insurgents affiliated with the Islamic State group launched a raid to overrun the coastal town last Wednesday, ransacking buildings and beheading civilians.

Dozens have been killed in what witnesses describe as a coordinated attack, just 10km from a multi-billion dollar gas project on the Afungi peninsula led by France’s Total.

“There are still sporadic clashes reported from Palma this morning,” the UN humanitarian affairs agency OCHA said Tuesday, adding that “thousands” fled to the bush and sought refuge near the gas exploration site.

Efforts to evacuate people trapped after an attack by rebel fighters in Palma are continuing despite the tense situation.

“We have rescued 120 people who had run away and hidden in camps,” Lionel Dyck, CEO of Dyck Advisory Group, which was contracted to help the Mozambican government and gas companies fight rebels there, told South African broadcaster SABC.

Dyck said his group also managed to escort numerous people, who could not board their helicopters, to places of safety.

“There are numerous bodies lying on the streets, some decapitated. We are currently not counting bodies but focusing on the living,” he said, adding that the situation in the area is still quite chaotic.

The raid on Palma was a major escalation in the insurgency by jihadists who have wreaked havoc across northern Mozambique since 2017, raiding villages and towns with the aim of establishing an Islamic caliphate.

Mozambique’s former coloniser Portugal on Tuesday announced plans to send around 60 troops to help local soldiers fight the militants.

Hundreds of shaken survivors from Palma have streamed into the neighbouring town of Mueda and provincial capital Pemba, where they arrived via boat, foot and plane.

Over 3 360 displaced people had safely reached surrounding districts, said the International Organization for Migration.

But aid agencies believe thousands more are still wandering around the area, desperately seeking refuge.

Some have been trudging through forest for days, walking west towards the Tanzanian border, with little access to food and water.

Global medical charity Doctors Without Borders said its teams “are working to ascertain where significant groups of people Palma are” and their intended destinations.

Hundreds have meanwhile gathered outside Total’s fortified complex in the hope of being evacuated.

The oil giant ferried around 1 400 people, including both gas and government workers, to Pemba on Sunday, but has since been accused of turning its back on displaced residents.

Total said it has organised “emergency support”, including food and water, for people arriving at its site.

Only a few dozen other survivors have since reached the provincial capital, mainly on small fishing boats, raising concern among humanitarians on the ground.

Around 40 escapees flew to Pemba on UN planes on Monday evening. Most were “traumatized and exhausted” women and children, said the UN’s refugee agency.

“That’s very little compared to the thousands that are reported stranded in Palma,” an unnamed aid worker in Pemba told AFP.

“We are worried that so far very few are coming.”

Mozambican civil society activist Adriano Nuvunga on Monday warned that insurgents were likely “still around” and “hiding” from the army, which had regained control of “certain areas”.

In Pemba, aid workers and missionaries waited outside the port for arrivals while others assisted those who had managed to complete the journey.

“Many of them had been hiding for more than four days,” said Father Kwiriwi Fonseca. “Some of them were injured, most of them were suffering from hunger.”

Survivors asked locals if they had seen their missing relatives.– Agencies.