Overview
- The Berlin-based ECCHR filed a 56-page complaint on November 18 alleging complicity in war crimes, torture and enforced disappearance linked to 2021 detentions at the Mozambique LNG site.
- The filing claims TotalEnergies directly financed and materially supported a Mozambican Joint Task Force guarding the project, rendering the company an accomplice to abuses.
- Survivor testimony reported that 180 to 250 men were confined in shipping containers for up to three months, with dozens killed and only 26 surviving, as first documented by Politico.
- ECCHR says its evidence includes photographs and internal security reports indicating TotalEnergies knew of repeated abuses by forces near the site from May 2020 yet continued providing accommodation, food, equipment and soldier bonuses.
- TotalEnergies denies knowledge of the alleged events, while lender reviews and funding holds by UK Export Finance and Dutch authorities, plus U.S. litigation over Export-Import Bank support, complicate a planned restart that targets first gas in 2029 and seeks approval for a budget with $4.5 billion in overruns.