Key facts
- TotalEnergies refused fuel for civilian evacuation helicopters during the 2021 Palma attack.
- The company denied British special forces access to its site during the Mozambique assault.
- British contractor Philip Mawer was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade while fleeing Palma.
- A British inquest ruled Mawer was unlawfully killed but found TotalEnergies had no duty of care to him.
- TotalEnergies faces criminal complaints in France over its Mozambique operations and the Palma attack.
TotalEnergies refused to supply fuel to helicopters evacuating civilians during the 2021 Islamist militant assault on Palma, Mozambique, and later denied British special forces use of its nearby construction site for a rescue mission, a British inquest heard this week. The four-day hearing in Winchester focused on the death of Philip Mawer, a 58-year-old British construction contractor working on the French energy giant’s gas plant project, who was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade while fleeing the attack.
Coroner Jason Pegg ruled on Thursday that Mawer was unlawfully killed by an unknown person. However, he accepted arguments from TotalEnergies’ Mozambican subsidiary that the company had no legal duty of care to Mawer, as he was a subcontractor. Mawer's brothers, Bill and Mark, accused TotalEnergies of abandoning him, questioning why fuel and landing rights were denied to the evacuation effort.
The testimony could have implications in France, where TotalEnergies faces two criminal complaints over its Mozambique operations. One complaint is for involuntary manslaughter, tied to contractor deaths during the Palma attack, and a French investigating magistrate was appointed last year to examine it. A second complaint accuses TotalEnergies of complicity in war crimes and torture, alleging the company became an accomplice in a massacre where Mozambican soldiers allegedly brutalized, starved, suffocated, executed, or disappeared around 200 men at the company's gatehouse between June and September 2021. TotalEnergies has denied responsibility for the deaths during the attack, which killed 1,354 civilians, including 55 project workers, according to a POLITICO survey. The company stated in 2025 that its research had not identified evidence corroborating the abuse allegations.