Between July and September 2021, approximately 200 displaced civilian men were detained in two shipping containers at the gatehouse of TotalEnergies’ Afungi LNG site in Cabo Delgado. Only an estimated 26 are believed to have survived. Women at the nearby Patacua military base were systematically sexually assaulted. Five years on, no Mozambican prosecution has been brought. TotalEnergies’ own commissioned advisers had warned in writing that the relationship with the security forces carried exactly this kind of risk. Six company executives are now named in a war-crimes complaint in France. The project restarted on 29 January 2026.
On the night of 21 June 2021, Maria, a 60-year-old farmer from the village of Ncumbi near the town of Palma, fled into the bush with around 500 others. Insurgents linked to the local group known as al-Shabab - unrelated to the Somali group of the same name - had taken control of much of the area around TotalEnergies' LNG site at Afungi following the March 2021 attack on Palma. A week later, text messages from the Mozambican army told civilians to seek sanctuary at the military base at Patacua, near the project's main entrance. Hundreds walked north and arrived on 1 July. There they found Mozambican commandos in red berets.
What followed has been reconstructed from more than two dozen direct survivor accounts gathered across multiple investigations: a series of interviews conducted by journalist Alex Perry, published in his book Blood Will Flow (March 2026) and in a September 2024 POLITICO investigation, alongside a report from the Dutch Clingendael Institute.
According to those accounts, the commandos systematically sexually assaulted women at Patacua and then detained approximately 200 men in two shipping containers at Quatro Caminho, a crossroads directly in front of the entrance to TotalEnergies' Afungi compound, an area identified in TotalEnergies' own reporting as under the protection of the Joint Task Force (JTF). The men were held for several weeks. An estimated 26 are believed to have survived.
What the Survivors Said
The accounts of what took place at Patacua and Quatro Caminho are difficult to read. According to the reconstruction drawn from both independent reporting streams:
Mozambican commandos separated men from women at Patacua and searched the women, ostensibly for “money taken from al-Shabab.” Survivor Timo, 27, a farmer, told Perry: “They would put their fingers on their vaginas and push around.” The violence left some women unable to walk. The Dutch report records that drunk soldiers entered homes in Patacua and raped women. In a survey of 60 households in the village of Monjane referenced in the same report, 57 per cent of households reported at least one member “killed” in connection with security-force operations, and 34 per cent reported at least one “disappeared.”
The soldiers then loaded approximately 180 to 250 male detainees aged 18 to 60 into armoured trucks and drove them to Quatro Caminho, where two shipping containers stood by the entrance to the Afungi gatehouse. They formed two lines and herded the men in, beating them with rifle butts. At least two men were beaten to death at this point. According to Perry’s reconstruction, the detainees were held for several weeks under conditions of extreme heat, starvation, and suffocation.
Among the named survivor accounts: Mwamba, 32, told Perry that a soldier said
“we don’t want any boy or man left alive. No matter how old he is. All must be beheaded.”
Mwako, an elderly man from Patacua, was beaten to death after being accused of being a rebel commander; his body was returned to his family. Moussa, 65, a peanut farmer, said he was among a group later ordered to bury other victims and counted five badly decomposed bodies. Maria, the principal survivor in Perry’s reporting, described commandos threatening to beat her when she tried to wash a heavily pregnant woman who had given birth on the ground. One Afungi employee corroborated the existence of the container detentions in interviews with Perry.
What TotalEnergies Knew - and When
TotalEnergies has publicly stated that it had “no knowledge of the alleged events.” But the documentary record complicates that position substantially.
LKL International Consulting, a Montreal-based human-rights advisory firm commissioned by TotalEnergies, wrote in its December 2020 report, published on TotalEnergies’ own website, that “the nature of the relationship with the JTF puts the project in a position of potentially contributing to adverse impacts on human rights that are caused by members of the JTF.” Jean-Christophe Rufin and Ingrid Glowacki wrote in a 2023 report, subsequently published by TotalEnergies, that “in the event of human rights violations, this link directly engages the responsibility of the consortium,” and that “any direct link between the consortium and the Mozambican army should be cut off.”
Internal Mozambique LNG documents, obtained through freedom-of-information requests in the Netherlands and Italy and subsequently reported by Le Monde in November 2024 and SourceMaterial in January 2025, indicate that from at least May 2020, internal communications contained references to security-force conduct in communities surrounding the LNG plant.
TotalEnergies and Mozambique: A Relationship Built on Mutual Contempt
The public image of partnership between TotalEnergies and the Mozambican government, press releases about shared development, handshakes at the restart ceremony, conceals prolonged and difficult negotiations over costs, security, and contract terms that remained unresolved at the time of the restart.
What this means for accountability is that the force most directly responsible for the container detentions, the Mozambican commandos in red berets, operated within a security architecture that TotalEnergies designed and partially funded, under warnings from its own advisers that the arrangement created legal exposure. TotalEnergies denies that exposure. The question of what company executives knew, and when, is now before French investigative judges with broad independent powers.
In response to detailed questions from this consortium, TotalEnergies stated that the salaries of Joint Task Force members were paid by the Mozambican Ministry of Defence, not by Mozambique LNG, and that hardship payments arranged through a third-party auditing firm were explicitly linked to compliance with the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights and could be immediately suspended in case of non-compliance. The company said it "strongly and categorically rejects" any suggestion that Mozambique LNG or TotalEnergies had knowledge of the alleged abuses, noting that all personnel had been evacuated from the Afungi site in early April 2021, before the period in which the alleged events occurred. TotalEnergies added that it had requested the Mozambique National Human Rights Commission to conduct an independent investigation, and cited the CNDH's March 2026 press release finding that "no evidence has been found that confirms allegations of torture or summary executions within the perimeter of the Mozambique LNG Project." The company said it "categorically rejects any suggestion" that it threatened or encouraged threats against journalists.
The Complaint, the Courts, and the Clock
The legal reckoning is unfolding in two jurisdictions. In France, a criminal complaint was filed at the Nanterre Prosecutor's Office in October 2023 for indirect manslaughter and non-assistance to persons in danger, in connection with the March 2021 Palma attack. According to Reuters and France 24, the Nanterre investigation was formally opened in March 2025, after the prosecutor found the facts sufficient to warrant a judicial inquiry.
On 17 November 2025, a second complaint was filed with France's National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor for complicity in war crimes, complicity in torture, and complicity in enforced disappearances. Six TotalEnergies executives are named: chief executive Patrick Pouyanné; country managers Maxime Rabilloud and Bescond; head of global security Billaudel; and Marbot and Stroeng, the head and deputy head of security at Afungi. The Mozambican Office of the Attorney General announced an investigation on 4 March 2025. It has produced no public output.
TotalEnergies has not deleted its files. It has published some of them, among them the December 2020 LKL International human-rights risk assessment and the 2023 Rufin-Glowacki report, both commissioned by the company and both warning of legal exposure from the JTF relationship. Those documents, together with the internal Mozambique LNG records obtained through FOI requests in the Netherlands and Italy, have since been reported by Le Monde and SourceMaterial.
The Restart
On 29 January 2026, TotalEnergies and the Mozambican government held a ceremony at Afungi to mark the full restart of the project. Satellite imagery, accessed by this consortium, shows visible construction activity on the site as of March 2026. Siemens Energy's 2020 contract to deliver six SGT-800 industrial gas turbines and four boil-off gas compressors remained in force at the time of writing. No components had been delivered. Urgewald and Deutsche Umwelthilfe have publicly demanded a delivery halt pending an independent human rights investigation. Siemens has not withdrawn.
In response to detailed questions from this consortium, a Siemens Energy spokesperson confirmed that the delivery contract remains in place and that no components have yet been delivered, noting that the project had been suspended for five years. The company declined to answer questions about its internal human rights risk assessments or whether it had been informed of the alleged 2021 abuses by TotalEnergies. It stated that it fulfils contractual obligations
"in accordance with binding standards on human rights, environmental and climate protection" and works with "experienced partners who also commit to compliance with relevant standards."
A security analyst who monitors the conflict from outside Mozambique noted to this consortium that as recently as 22–23 February 2026, a major ambush on the N308 highway, the main road near the project site, left several people killed and the road temporarily closed. No major Mozambican media outlet reported it. The cover story was something else.
Accountability
M28 Investigates and Forbidden Stories submitted detailed questions to TotalEnergies SE; to Mozambique LNG; to each consortium partner; to the Mozambican Ministry of Defence; to the Mozambican Ministry of Interior, covering UIR, SERNIC, and DIO; to the Mozambican Ministry of Justice and the Procurador Geral de Moçambique; to ISCO Segurança; to the Office of the Attorney General; and to Siemens Energy over the turbine contract.
TotalEnergies' prior public statement to POLITICO that it had "no knowledge of the alleged events" is on the record. In response to this consortium's questions, TotalEnergies firmly rejected all accusations, stating that Mozambique LNG personnel had been evacuated from the Afungi site in early April 2021 and were not present during the period in which the alleged abuses occurred. The company said internal verifications confirmed that neither Mozambique LNG nor TotalEnergies had received any information regarding such allegations at the time. TotalEnergies cited the Mozambique National Human Rights Commission's March 2026 finding that no evidence had been found confirming allegations of torture or summary executions within the project perimeter. The Mozambican government, ISCO Segurança, and the Office of the Attorney General did not provide substantive responses at the time of writing.
The accounts of what took place at Patacua and Quatro Caminho between July and September 2021 have been documented by two independent investigations drawing on more than two dozen direct survivor accounts. TotalEnergies' own commissioned advisers warned, in writing, that the security relationship documented in those accounts carried a risk of human-rights harm. Five years on, the only active criminal proceedings are in France. The project has restarted.
