MAPUTO, Jan 24, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A Mozambican journalist has been confirmed dead, two weeks after security forces were seen beating him in a region where he was reporting on an Islamist insurgency, a rights group said Thursday.

Arlindo Chissale was the editor of online outlet Pinnacle News, and had spent years reporting on the insurgency in Mozambique's gas-rich north. He was also an activist who had backed opposition leader Venancio Mondlane in the recent 
elections.

He was last seen on January 7 while travelling between the cities of Pemba and Nacala in a minibus, the Center for Democracy and Human Rights said in a statement.

Security forces stopped the vehicle and ordered him to get into an unmarked vehicle, the group said.

"Chissale resisted their orders, but was violently beaten on the spot and forced into a white car with no license plates, occupied by three uniformed police officers and five civilians," the statement said.

"The authorities' silence on the case legitimises the suspicions that Chissale was kidnapped and then executed by police because of his work as a journalist, and for his support of Venancio Mondlane," it added.

Mondlane, whose claim to have won the October presidential election led the country into weeks of unrest, told AFP on Wednesday that he would not join the new government.

Daniel Chapo was sworn in as president a week ago, vowing to unite the country after post-election violence that has claimed more than 300 lives.