Journalists disappear as intimidation grips Mozambique's Cabo Delgado region
On the morning of 7 February, 2025, journalist Arlindo Chissale left his home in Pemba, the capital of Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province. The reporter, who worked for the online publication Pinnacle News, met his friend Abudo Gafuro outside Maria Auxiliadora church.
Chissale recorded a video about alleged electoral fraud. Mozambique had been shaken for months by protests over the results of the October general election.
"I'll post it this evening," he told his friend, before the two men parted ways.
A few hours later, Chissale boarded a bus bound for Nacala, several hundred kilometres to the south. He was due to start his second job at a city cemetery. He never arrived.
Seventeen months after his disappearance, Chissale is still missing.
Last known movements
His brother, Macario Chissale, reconstructed the journalist's last known movements. Witnesses told him the bus was stopped near the village of Silva Macua, around 100km west of Pemba, by an unmarked white vehicle.
Five men got out, including two wearing police uniforms. They ordered the journalist off the bus, beat him and forced him into the vehicle.
His disappearance did not come as a surprise to those close to him.
"He had prepared us for the worst," his brother said. "He felt threatened and persecuted."
For several years, Chissale had reported on sensitive subjects including the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, sexual violence allegedly committed by members of the Mozambique Armed Forces, corruption and drug trafficking.
Shortly before he disappeared, he had been summoned to a late-night meeting at a petrol station by Bernardo Ouana, commander of Pemba's third police station. The meeting had worried his relatives. In this video still a Mozambican soldier rides on an armoured vehicle at the airport in Mocimboa da Praia, Cabo Delgado province, Mozambique, 9 August, 2021.
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Pressure on the media
Chissale's case is not unique in Cabo Delgado.
In 2020, Ibraimo Abù Mbaruco, a journalist working for a community radio station in Palma, north of Pemba, disappeared in similar circumstances. The Southern Africa Media Institute, known as MISA, said his final message to a colleague read: "I am surrounded by soldiers."
A year earlier, journalist Amade Aboubacar spent four months in pre-trial detention after being arrested while interviewing people displaced by attacks carried out by an armed Islamist group known locally as Al-Shabab, and linked to the Islamic State group (but unrelated to the Somali militant group of the same name).
He was accused of offences including public incitement and insulting public authorities. He was later released on bail and the case was eventually dropped.
"People working on the ground are persecuted by government forces," Vasco King, of local human rights organisation Kundeleya, said.
Mozambique violence fuelled by historical grievances and civil war politics
Rule of silence
Cabo Delgado lies nearly 3,000km from Maputo, Mozambique's capital. Despite being rich in natural resources including rubies, lithium, rare earth minerals and gas, it remains the country's poorest province.
The region is also a hub for trafficking in drugs, ivory, exotic animals and timber. These activities have flourished amid a weak state presence. For almost 10 years, the province has also faced violence from Al-Shebab militants.
On 17 February, 2024, Cabo Delgado governor Valige Tauabo criticised media coverage of the region during a speech in Pemba.
He said reporting on Cabo Delgado "bears the mark of evil" and accused journalists of having reached "agreements with the terrorists".
"The Mozambican government does not want the true nature of the conflict to be revealed," Carlos Qembo of Amnesty International said.
"At the beginning, the authorities believed the violence in Cabo Delgado was caused by outside influences and would quickly be resolved. Despite its immense mineral wealth, Cabo Delgado suffers from deep social inequalities that particularly affect young people. The authorities do not want that interpretation of the situation to gain ground."
The rise of Al-Shabab came shortly after the 2012 discovery of what was described as the world's largest offshore gas field, containing 5,000 billion cubic metres of gas.
Headed up by French energy giant TotalEnergies, the LNG project was suspended in April 2021 following a deadly Al-Shabab attack. It was relaunched in January this year and is expected to attract international investors.
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Growing restrictions
The authorities' refusal to address the cause of the crisis has created a system of repression, according to Aly Caetano, co-ordinator of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD).
"When an activist denounces unemployment or poverty, they are accused of being an enemy of the country," he said.
Al-Shebab have used those grievances in their preaching and propaganda – denouncing corruption, inequality and the concentration of wealth, while authorities pursue a hardline approach towards civilians.
"The government took a long time to declare a state of emergency," Caetano said.
"However, it moved very quickly to restrict the freedoms of Cabo Delgado's residents. In Palma and Mocimboa da Praia, freedom of movement and freedom of association have been reduced."
He said some people were even afraid to practise Islam openly.
In 2023, the government further tightened restrictions on civil liberties. Citing the fight against money laundering, it introduced draft legislation that would allow the dissolution of non-governmental organisations and human rights groups.
This article was adapted from the original version in French by Gaëlle Laleix, reporting from Cabo Delgado.
It is the third instalment of Mozambique Exposed, an investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a global non-profit network of investigative journalists. The project is based on nearly 100 interviews and five months of reporting by 30 journalists from 10 media organisations, including RFI and Les Observateurs de France 24 (France), Evident Media (United States), Expresso (Portugal), M28 Investigates (Rwanda), Paper Trail Media (Germany), SourceMaterial (United Kingdom), ZDF (Germany) and Zitamar News (Mozambique).