Tens of thousands feared displaced in deadly attack on Mozambique gas town

MAPUTO (Reuters) - Portugal will send soldiers to Mozambique to help train the armed forces in its former colony, where authorities battling an Islamist insurgency searched for tens of thousands of civilians who fled an onslaught on the northern coastal gas town of Palma.

Many of those fleeing are believed to have scattered into dense surrounding forest or to have attempted to escape by boat when Palma came under attack on Wednesday, aid workers told Reuters. Some waded out to sea to hide, one survivor told Reuters.