Inquest: helicopters ‘did not have fuel’ to rescue Briton from terrorists
Philip Mawer, from Shaftesbury, Dorset, was killed in the attack by the Isis-linked Al-Shabaab, in 2021
The boss of a private military company, which provided armed helicopters to the Mozambique government, has told the inquest of a British man, who died in an attack by terrorist insurgents, that further rescue flights would “probably” have been made, if fuel had been available.
Philip Mawer, from Shaftesbury, Dorset, was killed in the attack by the Isis-linked Al-Shabaab group on March 26 2021, after a siege of the Amarula Hotel in the town of Palma, in the north of the east African country.
The Winchester hearing heard that the 58 year-old had been expecting to be evacuated by helicopter from the hotel, after other people had already been taken to safety.
Chief executive officer of South Africa-based Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), Max Dyck, told the inquest that his company was providing about six armed helicopters to the Mozambique government to help with the crisis including evacuations.
He said: “The Mozambique government asked us to go up there and support, our role, we were trying to rescue and pull people out of places, to save lives and try and fight against the insurgents and push them back.”
Mr Dyck said operations were hampered, by a lack of fuel for the helicopters, leading to delays of four to five hours and limitations on which missions they could embark on.
He added that oil company Total had denied his company’s requests for fuel, saying “we never got fuel directly from Total” and that there were a “multitude of moving parts to get fuel”.
Mr Dyck said his crews were able to carry out a mission to the Amarula Hotel, at the request of the Mozambique police and government, to evacuate a district commissioner and his family, on March 25.
He said four helicopters had managed to extricate a total of 24 people during the operation despite being under fire, with one of the aircraft being hit.
He explained: “People like that become high-value targets and, if they are captured or killed, it becomes a very political issue.
“They hoped, by extricating the most senior leadership on the ground, it might de-escalate the situation.”
He added that the foreign nationals staying at the hotel were “the next level” that the government wanted to “deal with”.
When asked if more fuel would have enabled a further evacuation mission to the hotel, Mr Dyck replied: “If we had more fuel, we would have flown more, we would have gone to Amarula – quite possibly, probably.”
Mr Dyck said he had received a request from the British embassy at Maputo to rescue Mr Mawer, but said the request would have to go through the Mozambique government, which had contracted his company.
He said that he told the embassy: “Listen, you as a government has to talk to them” and added: “It’s not down to us as a private contractor to go round picking people up willy-nilly.”
He added: “I was getting calls from multitude people from around the world to pick people up, my answer is I have no problem to do it but it’s not for me to get involved in the politics, it’s not what we are being paid for and it’s not our role to get involved in that.”
Mr Dyck said a DAG helicopter returned on March 26, in a “support role”, to another aircraft, to help fight “rebels seen climbing over the wall” of the hotel compound, but no helicopter had landed at the hotel’s helipad that day.
Mr Mawer was employed by RA International at the time of his death and had been based in Mozambique for 18 months managing the building of camps for workers involved in a large natural gas project.
His family said in a statement after his death: “Philip was an ebullient, outgoing character, who had something of the lovable rogue about him.”