Environmental group warns UK’s £750m funding for fossil fuel project could worsen Isis-led insurgency The UK government is facing fresh calls to abandon its £750m plan to support a gas export terminal in Mozambique over fears the fossil fuel project is stoking the insurgency in the north of the country, which has left thousands of people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands. In a letter to the government, seen by the Guardian, lawyers for the environmental group Friends of the Earth have warned that the huge natural gas project has worsened the conflict in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, and called on the UK government to withdraw its financial support. Mozambique’s poverty-stricken northern province has suffered increasingly violent attacks by Islamic State-affiliated insurgents since 2017, many targeting towns and communities near the $20bn (£15bn) gas project, which is backed by major international investors and companies. Rachel Kennerley, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth (FoE), said: “The violence started as far back as 2017, because of social inequalities, deprivation and acute issues like displacement of local communities from their land by the gas projects. This has continued and worsened recently. “So, while the gas companies are a target of the violence, they are also a significant causal factor to the violence, exacerbating the conditions that meant this insurgency could take hold. They are an integral part of the problem.” Human rights campaigners believe the region’s unrest is rooted in the removal of communities from state-owned land to make way for private companies hoping to mine for gems or exploring for offshore gas over the past decade. Violence reignited in Cabo Delgado last month, just hours after Total, the French-based energy company, announced that it would resume work on its multibillion-dollar liquified natural gas (LNG) project. About 100 insurgents linked to Isis were... |