Almost a decade after an Islamist insurgency erupted in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province, few reports on the conflict are emerging from the region. This third instalment of Mozambique Exposed – an investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, to which RFI contributed – hears from journalists and activists facing intimidation and violence.
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.
