Mozambique: Population could double in the next three decades
Mozambique: CPJ and MISA demand information about missing journalists
3:24 CAT | 29 Aug 2025
Image: MISA Moçambique
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), and the Mozambican chapter of the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa) have called on the Mozambican authorities to provide “credible information” about two journalists who have gone missing in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.
Ibraimo Mbaruco works for the Palma Community Radio as a journalist and news reader. He was seen for the last time leaving his office on 7 April 2020, at around 18.00. A short while later Mbaruco sent a mobile phone text message to a colleague, saying that he was “surrounded by soldiers”.
The second missing journalist, Arlindo Chissale, is the editor of the web site “Pinnacle News”. On 7 January this year, he was travelling in a minibus through the village of Silva Macua, when a group of eight armed men, some of them wearing uniforms of the Mozambican defence and security forces, ordered him out of the vehicle. Since then, nothing more has been heard from him.
The families of the two journalists “are devastated with the disappearance of their relatives, and with the incapacity of the government to investigate their cases properly”, declared Angela Quintal, the regional director of the CPJ for Africa. “The suggestion of military complicity is another damning sign that Mozambique is not a safe country for journalists”.
“The government of President Daniel Chapo must provide answers about the whereabouts of Mbaruco and Chissale as part of a broader effort to reassure Mozambican journalists about their safety and freedom”, added Quintal.
The Executive Director of MISA-Mozambique, Ernesto Nhanale, said that shelving the case of the disappearance of a journalist before exhausting all lines of investigation “makes no sense. This decision shows that the Mozambican state has no interest in solving crimes against journalists”.
In the days following the disappearance of Mbaruco, his family and colleagues repeatedly sent him text messages, but his mobile phone had been switched off. However, according to MISA-Mozambique, it was switched back on again on 8 June 2020. MISA informed the authorities of this development and urged them to use geo-location technology to trace the movements of the journalist.
A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told MISA that soldiers had taken Mbaruco for interrogation in Mueda, about 300 kilometres from Palma. Mueda houses the Northern Operational Theatre of the Mozambican armed forces.
As for Chissale, some hours before his disappearance, he received a message that he was at risk. In the preceding months he had published comments accusing the ruling Frelimo Party of election fraud and expressing support for the opposition.
Chissale had been the victim of harassment before. In November 2022, he was arrested and held for six days. He was initially accused of “terrorism”, but later this charge was dropped and he was said to be working as a journalist without due accreditation.
The CPJ/MISA appeal comes immediately before the International Day for the Victims of Forced Disappearance.
Source: AIM
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