To the Government of Mozambique

• Immediately ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the related Optional Protocol to commit to international ESCRs standards and report on implementation progress to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

• Ensure provision of basic services – health, education, electricity, clean water and sanitation – to people in Nagonha as provided under Mozambican constitution and human rights obligations.

• Conduct, as a matter of urgency, the legally required environmental, social and human rights inspections on all mining operations carried out by Haiyu Mozambique Mining Co., Lda and make reports of its findings available to the public.

• Investigate all the potential human rights abuses, criminal offences and other breaches of Mozambique law set out in this report, including:

• Haiyu’s failure to conduct all the necessary and legally required consultations with affected communities; its failure to carry out proper EIA and its failure to ensure human rights due diligence throughout all its mining operations;

• The impact of Haiyu’s mining operations on the environment and rights of people, including the impact of the ongoing sand mine dumping over the wetland and waterways, specifically the cause of changing topography and the flooding of Nagonha in 2015.

• Pending such investigations and until all environmental and human rights concerns are addressed, immediately suspend Haiyu’s mining activity under mining concession 4776C around Nagonha, and ensure that the community is genuinely consulted and informed at all stages of the process.

• Following the results of those investigations, take all necessary administrative, legal and enforcement actions against Haiyu, including measures to restore all damage and loss of property and livelihood caused as result of its mining operations and guarantee non-recurrence by ensuring full compliance with domestic law and all human rights due diligence requirements in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

• Ensure that the residents of Nagonha have access to effective remedies and reparation. Reparation must include, among other things, adequate compensation for the damage caused by the loss of their livelihoods and housing, and restitution of the ecological services of the wetland including drinking water, grazing land, medicinal plants, lagoons for fishing and recreational swimming.

• Take urgent steps to strengthen legal and policy safeguards as well as regulatory bodies to ensure that people are protected against human rights abuses and environmental impacts of mining operations. Increase the technical capacity of MITADER and MIREME, seeking international cooperation and assistance as necessary, to independently assess and monitor environmental impacts.

• Take urgent steps to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its Optional Protocol.

To the Mozambican Parliament

• Ensure international best practices and guidelines for sand mining in coastal areas, particularly in coastal wetlands, are incorporated into domestic law and enforced effectively.

• Ensure the executive takes steps to initiate reform of domestic law and policy to ensure companies domiciled or headquartered in the country carry out adequate human rights due diligence throughout their operations in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and report publicly on their due diligence policies and practices. This reform should include strengthening legal requirements on assessment of potential impacts of company operations on rights to health, adequate housing, access to clean water and livelihoods; on genuine consultations with affected communities, and on transparency and access to information.

• Ensure regular visits to mining operations by the Parliamentary Commission on the Extractives Industry to assess social, economic and human rights impacts of mining operations on local communities.

To Haiyu Mozambique Mining Co., Lda

• Ensure that Nagonha residents receive adequate reparation for the loss of or damage to their livelihood and housing resulting from its operations, including full compensation for all losses, and restitution of the wetlands wherever possible.

• Carry out effective clean-up and restitution operations of the wetland in consultation with the local communities, as a matter of urgency, and immediately publish the clean-up and restitution reports and certificates.

• Undertake human rights due diligence throughout its all mining operations in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and report fully and publicly on the steps taken.

• Design and implement, as a matter of urgency, a resettlement plan in consultation with Nagonha residents and civil society. The resettlement plan and process must comply with the provisions of Regulamento de Reassentamento and international human rights standards, including on the right to adequate housing, and ensure that the community has all the necessary infrastructure for social services, including access to clean water, health, sanitation, education and recreation.

• Prepare the legally required independent environmental impact audits every year and submit the respective reports to MITADER as well as make the reports available to the public.

To Hainan Haiyu Mining Co., Ltd, and its direct and indirect shareholders

• Ensure that Haiyu Mozambique Mining Co., Lda, acts to implement a resettlement plan for the villagers of Nagonha and provide adequate reparation for any losses resulting from company actions.

• Put in place adequate human rights due diligence systems in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to ensure companies do not commit or contribute to human rights abuses wherever they operate and publicly disclose steps taken to prevent or mitigate human rights risks in their business operations.

To the Government of the People’s Republic of China

• Immediately engage with Hainan Haiyu Mining Co., Ltd, and call on it to ensure any remedies and reparation for human rights abuses related to its subsidiary, Haiyu Mozambique Mining Co., Lda.

• Institute legal and policy reforms to require companies domiciled or headquartered in China to carry out adequate human rights due diligence throughout their global operations in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

To the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters (CCCMC)

• Call on Hainan Haiyu Mining Co., Ltd, to put in place processes for conducting supply chain due diligence following the five-step process set out in the Chinese Due Diligence Guidelines for Responsible Mineral Supply Chains and to report publicly on the steps it has taken to manage and mitigate human rights risks in its business operations.

China Mining Co. Destroys Mozambique Coast, Village

News Ghana

1 April 2018

Mozambique’s coastal village on the brink of extinction from irresponsible Chinese mining company. Mining giant Haiyu denies responsibility for flood that left 290 people homeless, while Mozambican authorities fail to regulate mining industry to ensure people’s safety, denying village residents reparation for their losses.

An irresponsible Chinese mining operation in Mozambique has put an entire coastal village of more than a thousand people at serious risk of being washed into the Indian Ocean, Amnesty International revealed today in a new report.

Our lives mean nothing: the human cost of Chinese mining in Nagonha, Mozambique, exposes how the operations of mining company, Haiyu, likely contributed significantly to a flash flood in 2015 in the village of Nagonha, which destroyed 48 homes and left 290 people homeless. The Mozambican authorities’ failure to regulate the industry in the wake of this disaster has also contributed to the risks to the village from the company’s ongoing mining operations.

“The devastating flooding in 2015 should have been the catalyst for the Mozambican authorities to address Haiyu’s activities by implementing proper regulation,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for Southern Africa.

“Their inaction has left the people of Nagonha at the mercy of a company that puts the pursuit of profit ahead of people’s lives. Left unchecked, Haiyu’s mining operations pose a grave danger of further catastrophic flooding that could wipe Nagonha off the map.”

On top of the 48 houses destroyed by the flooding in 2015, local government authorities also recorded 173 more as partially destroyed. Local elders and authorities who had lived in Nagonha for more than 70 years told Amnesty International that they had no record of such floods occurring previously.

Haiyu’s mining operations likely significantly contributed to devastating flooding

Based on detailed analysis of satellite images, testimony from Nagonha residents and evidence from environmental experts, the report shows how the environmental impact of Haiyu’s mining operations likely contributed to the 2015 flooding.

Comparison of satellite images of the area between December 2010 and October 2014 show the build-up of mining-related sand deposits around Nagonha and the gradual change in the natural flow of water. The satellite images show that by October 2014, approximately 280,000 square meters of wetland north of the village were covered by the sand and that the channel connecting the lagoons west and north of the village to the sea had been completely blocked.

All of the available evidence strongly suggests that Haiyu’s mining activities and in particular the way it deposited sand across the landscape placed the coastal village at heightened risk of flooding and likely contributed significantly to the 2015 flood.

This analysis corresponds with the testimony gathered from Nagonha village residents, as well as with the opinions of independent environmental experts who confirmed that Haiyu’s mining operations significantly increased the risk of flooding.

The community, which is heavily reliant on fishing, has also lost vital natural resources provided by local wetlands, including drinking water, medicinal plants, lagoons for fishing, wild fruits, traditional medicines and firewood.

Amnesty International found that Haiyu did not conduct a proper environmental impact assessment or consult with the community prior to establishing its business, despite local legislation requiring it to do so.

“We should be compensated for our losses”

Amnesty International interviewed 35 residents affected by the 2015 flooding who lost their personal belongings and livelihoods.

One resident, Roma, told Amnesty International how he lost everything that he worked for:

“Four of us lived in the house – me, my wife, my son and my younger brother. There were so many things in the house – four chickens, a bed, a solar panel…clothes and shoes, plates, pots, and basins. We lost all of that.”

Tola, a local fisherman, told Amnesty International:

“I lost all my fishing tools… the boat buoys, two bags of rice, cooking utensils, the clothes of my five kids, my wife and myself. My house was new. We should be compensated for our losses.”

Haiyu has refused to provide compensation to the villagers who were left homeless.

In its response to Amnesty International’s report the company has denied responsibility for the 2015 flood, citing a natural event on a scale not seen for 100 years. It rejected Amnesty International’s assertion that its operations caused environmental impact and detailed the work which it did to assist in the flood response in the region. Haiyu’s full letter of response is attached to the report.

“Unsurprisingly, instead of taking responsibility for the destruction of people’s homes and livelihoods, the company is evading its responsibility to do the right thing,” said Deprose Muchena.

“This is a classic case that highlights the struggles that poor communities face when big corporates ride rough shod over their rights and governments fail in their duty protect the most vulnerable.”

Amnesty International calls for the Mozambican authorities to investigate the company for breaches of the country’s laws. The organization is also calling on the authorities to ensure that residents of Nagonha have access to effective remedies and reparation for their loss.

Background

Nagonha is a rural fishing village with 1,329 residents living in 236 huts about 180km east of Nampula City.

The village is located inside a mining concession that was awarded to Chinese mining company, Haiyu Mozambique Mining Co. Lda., a subsidiary of Hainan Haiyu Mining Co. Ltd. based in China, on 19 December 2011.

The company has been mining heavy sand minerals, namely ilmenite, titanium and zircon. Haiyu began mining about 3km north of the village and continued southward toward the village, bulldozing sand dunes, clearing vegetation and dumping mining waste over the wetland, burying two major lagoons and the waterways that connected them and the wetland to the sea.

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