PARIS — A group of more than 100 NGOs has called on private banks and public lending institutions to stop financing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility under construction by French fossil fuel giant TotalEnergies in Mozambique.
“It is in your hands to ensure justice for the people affected by this project, and for the survivors and witnesses of the reported massacre near the Afungi gas site,” the NGOs wrote in an open letter published Wednesday.
POLITICO reported in September that a Mozambican military unit operating out of TotalEnergies’ gas plant herded a group of between 180 and 250 people into containers at the energy giant’s gatehouse and kept them there for three months.
Eleven survivors, plus two witnesses, testified that only 26 men survived the ordeal. POLITICO published a summary of a survey that identified 97 victims, and listed their causes of death as suffocation, being beaten to death, being shot, being “disappeared” — taken away and presumably executed — and missing, presumed dead after last being seen in the army’s custody.
