France, June 12 -- It is barely 7am in the departure lounge at Pemba airport in northern Mozambique, on a day in early May. Around a dozen passengers sit quietly, some trying to recover from a short night's sleep.

Most are aid workers waiting for a United Nations-chartered flight to Mueda, Mocimboa da Praia or Palma, several hundred kilometres north of Pemba.

Suddenly, four heavily built men stand up. A pilot hands them unusual flat, brightly coloured life jackets. The group walks across the tarmac towards a helicopter.

"They're going to Afungi," one aid worker remarks. "A direct landing at the Total base." A closed-off enclave

Afungi is a peninsula near the town of Palma in Mozambique's far north, in the Cabo Delgado province close t...