More than 18 months after disputed elections plunged Mozambique into unrest, the country’s criminal police are facing intensifying scrutiny amid allegations that political repression has not only persisted but hardened. Civil society organisations have condemned what they describe as abductions and killings carried out by security forces, with attention increasingly fixed on the National Criminal Investigation Service, widely known by its Portuguese acronym, Sernic.
This instalment of Mozambique Exposed — an investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, with contributions from RFI — focuses on claims that Sernic has shifted beyond conventional law enforcement and now functions as a form of political police aligned with Mozambique’s ruling party.
