- The company financed military units which tortured civilians to death
- In 2023, the consultant Jean-Christophe Rufin advised the French multinational to cut its ties with the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces
By MOZTIMES
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – The French multinational TotalEnergies was the subject, on Monday, of a criminal complaint at the French Public Prosecutor’s Office, accused of providing material support for a Mozambican military unit involved in torture, arbitrary detentions and disappearances of civilians in the Afungi peninsula, in Palma district, between July and September 2021.
According to an article published on Tuesday by the French newspaper LeMonde, the complaint was submitted by the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), an organisation based in Berlin which works on cases of human rights violations in conflict areas. According to the ECCHR, the soldiers of the Joint Task Force (JTF), stationed to protect the Mozambique LNG Project, kept dozens of civilians in metallic containers, where they were starved, beaten and tortured. At least five people were killed, and several are still missing.
The case became known as “the container massacre” and was initially exposed by journalistic investigations by Politico, LeMonde and the SourceMaterial collective, supported by satellite images and videos collected in 2021.
The denunciation claims that TotalEnergies directly financed the JTF, providing it with accommodation, equipment and additional payments for the soldiers, despite internal information warning of abuses committed by the Mozambican security forces against civilians.
Internal company documents, cited in the complaints, show that, since 2020, consultants and teams on the ground have been warning of the high risk of violence against local communities, including physical assaults, extortion and disappearances. Despite this, the cooperation with the JTF continued until October 2023.
In 2023, a report by consultant Jean-Christophe Rufin recommended that the company cease direct financing of the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces, specifically to avoid association with potential atrocities committed by Mozambican troops.
For the ECCHR, this shows that TotalEnergies knew of the risks of human rights violations associated with the force that it decided to support. The organisation argues that the company can be held criminally responsible for facilitating or permitting crimes committed in a context of armed conflict.
According to the LeMonde article, TotalEnergies denied that it had any knowledge of the events at the time, and says that, in November 2024, it asked the Mozambican Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) to launch an investigation. The PGR’s inquiry was opened in March 2025.
The Mozambique LNG project, valued at 20 billion US dollars is one of the largest private investments in Africa. The French company recently announced the lifting of the state of force majeure, and is preparing to resume activities, four years after the suspension caused by the terrorist attack of March 2021.
Environmental and human rights organisations say that this case strengthens the criticisms that the project benefits corporate and military interests, while the local communities remain unprotected from abuses, both by the insurgents and by the government forces. (MT)
