LONDON — Get ready for a legal fight.
That’s the message Friends of the Earth — which successfully put a halt on Britain’s North Sea oil drilling — is sending the U.K. government if it doesn’t drop its support for a Mozambique gas project embroiled in allegations of abduction, murder and rape.
The group has fired out a letter to the U.K. government saying it would be “unlawful” to reauthorize $1.15 billion in British taxpayer-backed loans and grants supporting the TotalEnergies’ gas project in northern Mozambique.
POLITICO reported last month that a Mozambican military unit operating out of the gatehouse of the site, which is run by TotalEnergies, massacred at least 97 civilians in 2021. Work on the site was halted in 2021 as Islamist militants swept through the region.
