Mozambique’s human rights commission said on Friday it has opened an investigation into media reports of deadly abuses by government soldiers against villagers fleeing jihadist unrest near a major TotalEnergies gas plant.
Politico reported in September that soldiers tasked with protecting the French fossil fuel giant’s site had rounded up villagers following a major attack in 2021 and locked between 180 and 250 into containers, accusing them of being part of an insurgency.
The men were held for three months and beaten, suffocated, starved and tortured, with only 26 surviving, according to the report by journalist Alex Perry based on interviews with survivors and witnesses.
“If true, the facts alleged in the article may constitute crimes of summary execution (murder) torture and other cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment,” the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said in a statement.
A team of investigators was in place and consulting with officials from the northern Cabo Delgado province, the statement said.
They would visit the area to collect statements from witnesses and victims, and also meet representatives of Mozambique LNG, the local subsidiary of France’s TotalEnergies.
A final report would include recommendations on accountability and possible reparations for victims, it said, without giving a timeline.
Mozambique LNG said last year it had no knowledge of the atrocities alleged to have been carried out between April and July 2021.
In March 2021 Islamic State-linked militants active in Cabo Delgado since 2017 attacked the port town of Palma, a few kilometres from the TotalEnergies site, sending thousands of people fleeing.
Conflict tracker ACLED estimated that more than 800 civilians and combatants were killed while Perry reported, after an investigation, that more than 1,400 were dead or missing.
The multi-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas project, a major boon for impoverished Mozambique, has been stalled since then.
