“Mozambique Exposed” is an investigation being carried out by a consortium of 30 journalists from ten different media outlets based in France, Germany, the United States, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Rwanda and Mozambique and coordinated by Forbidden Stories. FRANCE 24 and RFI are partners in this project.
Arlindo Chissale, a Mozambican journalist who became an activist with opposition party Podemos, denounced suspected fraud and the murder of fellow activists in the aftermath of the October 2024 general elections . Frelimo, the party that has been in power since the country’s independence, carried the elections .
Chissale was also investigating some of the most sensitive issues for the Mozambican government: the Islamist insurrection in Cabo Delgado, its impact on international gas megaprojects in the province and human rights abuses carried out by both the insurgents and Mozambican soldiers. The first part of our investigation looked at the context behind his disappearance on January 7, 2025.
Read more Arlindo Chissale, the Mozambican activist and journalist who knew too much
Chissale disappeared without a trace while travelling on public transport between the Mozambican cities of Pemba and Nacala. His disappearance occurred just a few days after he published a series of videos denouncing the murder of another member of Podemos. Most of his friends and family who spoke to the FRANCE 24 Observers team suspect that his disappearance was linked to his political and journalistic activities and that the Mozambican security forces might have been involved. However, for the time being, no information proving this theory beyond a doubt has been made public.
In order to better understand, we have tried to reconstruct the days leading up to Chissale’s disappearance through conversations with his friends and family.
‘He was preparing us for the worst, ever since the assassination of Elvino Dias’
On January 2, 2025, Chissale left Nacala, a town located in the province of Nampula, where his primary residence is located and where he works for the city’s cemetery. From there, Chissale travelled to Pemba, a city in Cabo Delgado province – the epicentre of his political activities. He stayed for several days in a home he has there. In a video he shared in a number of private WhatsApp groups on January 4, he said that he had travelled to Pemba because of his political activities.
"I’m not just here for the weekend, but to organise these elections [Editor’s note: he is referring to elections for district administrators, which seemed to be of an unofficial nature], which are ongoing and would conclude on January 6. How will they unfold? I came with a mission from the engineer Venâncio [Mondlane] to find out and to make sure it all takes place in an orderly manner.”
In this video, filmed in Pemba and posted in a private WhatsApp group on January 4, 2025, Chissale speaks about the assassination of a leader from the Podemos party in Montepuez in Cabo Delgado. © Arlindo Chissale
His family says that Chissale was nervous during his stay in Pemba, that he felt threatened by the consequences of the 2024 post-electoral crisis and the wave of assassinations of Podemos leaders. We spoke to his brother, Macario:
"He prepared us for the worst because, as a journalist, he knew that he was working on sensitive subjects. He told us, his loved ones, that we should know that the situation wasn’t good. He knew that Elvino Dias’ phone was seized after his assassination and that he thought that they [the assassins] had access to information that could compromise him.”
The FRANCE 24 Observers team was able to access Chissale’s email account and confirm that he was, indeed, in contact with the lawyer Elvino Dias, a figure within the Podemos party who was assassinated in his car ten days after the presidential election in October 2024.
We obtained this exchange from Chissale’s email account, which shows that he was in touch with lawyer Elvino Dias, who was assassinated on October 19, 2024. Dias was representing Chissale in several court cases and was gathering proof from him. In this exchange, from January 31, 2024, Dias is asking for “a list of victims as well as testimonies detailing the abuses they endured.” Our team was not able to establish with certainty which case they were speaking about. © Arlindo Chissale / Gmail
Screengrabs of WhatsApp conversations shared by friends and family show that he was also in contact with other important figures within Podemos, including Venâncio Mondlane, who ran for president in 2024.
‘I think his videos about electoral fraud are why he was kidnapped’
But what exactly about his political activities made Chissale, a journalist who was used to working on extremely sensitive subjects, afraid for his life? We were able to ask Venâncio Mondlane, the 2024 Podemos presidential candidate.
"Arlindo Chissale was a senior member of our group known as ‘intellectual guerillas’, made up of people who wrote, wh…
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