This coal is then shipped to ArcellorMittal’s Dunkirk plant, the single most polluting factory in France, although it received millions of euros of public funds, especially targeted to produce “green steel”.

Air saturated with toxic particles, cracked homes, poisoned farmland, contaminated water, and destroyed livelihoods: the residents of Moatize are paying with their health and their futures for steel produced thousands of kilometres away — while the transnational corporation makes billions in profits.

Air monitoring conducted by Justiça Ambiental JA! between September and October 2024 recorded fine particle concentrations of up to 340 μg/m³ in Moatize, which is seven times the WHO recommended threshold. Zinc levels were nearly 20 times higher than safety limits in neighbouring South Africa. Vanadium and manganese, both known carcinogens, exceeded safe thresholds by 12 and 7 times respectively. As local residents, affected communities and civil society organisations like JA! have repeatedly denounced, the families of Moatize are suffocating under coal dust.

The contamination reaches far beyond the air. Scientists have found dangerous concentrations of metals including copper and selenium in water sources around Moatize. Farmland is coated in coal dust. Explosions from the mine crack the walls of nearby homes. In January 2026, a red-hot rock projectile tore through a family’s house while a mother and daughter were inside.

Women and children, as always, pay the highest price. Isabel Graça Correia, 43, is one of many who has been suffering with tuberculosis — a disease strongly linked to coal dust exposure. She was forced to terminate a pregnancy and has been unable to conceive since.

ArcelorMittal: profits, public money, and an architecture of corporate impunity

The coal extracted by Vulcan Minerals, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Jindal Steel and ArcelorMittal’s direct supplier, is shipped from Mozambique’s port of Nacala to ArcelorMittal’s Dunkirk plant in France. ArcelorMittal is the world’s second largest steel producer, headquartered in Luxembourg and controlled by the billionaire Mittal family, with operations in over 60 countries — and its Dunkirk plant is the single most polluting factory in France, producing 12 million tonnes of CO₂ per year.

According to Disclose’s investigation, this same corporation has received at least €244 million in French public funds since 2021, pledged to reduce its environmental footprint through the production of “green steel”, then scaled back its green transition plans. The two electric ovens promised by 2027 became one, now delayed to 2029.

When confronted with the findings of this investigation, ArcelorMittal claimed that « no material risk, no warning signal and no unfavourable observation » had been identified in its supply chain assessment. This is an insult to every person living in Moatize.

Under the French law on the duty of vigilance, ArcelorMittal is legally required to prevent serious harm to human health and the environment throughout its own activities and those of the entities in its supply chain. The evidence of pollution in both Moatize and Dunkirk points out to failure to comply with those legal obligations, while the company is making huge financial profits. Last year’s profits amounted to 3.15bn USD.

“This investigation confirms what communities in Moatize have been shouting for years. ArcelorMittal’s coal supply chain is a textbook case of colonial extractivism: a marginalized community in one of the world’s poorest countries bears the toxic burden of production, while a transnational company headquartered in Europe collects the profits — backed by hundreds of millions in European public subsidies. It is not an accident, it is an architecture, and the corporation responsible calls it ‘no risk’. JA! Stands with these communities and will continue supporting their struggle until there is justice.” – Erika Mendes, Justiça Ambiental JA!

“This toxic coal supply chain, from Moatize in Mozambique to Dunkirk in France, is not an isolated failure. It is the designed outcome of a global economic model that extracts wealth from communities in the Global South to fuel industrial production in the Global North, shielded by legal loopholes, weak enforcement of existing laws, and the active support of governments and financial institutions. It is unacceptable to see the same patterns repeating over decades, with communities paying the price while transnational corporations make profits and even benefit from public money that would be urgently needed for a true and just energy transition”- Juliette Renaud, Friends of the Earth France.

Our demands

Justiça Ambiental and Friends of the Earth France call on:

• the French government to condition all public subsidies on verifiable respect of human rights and the environment in all the supply chain;
• the Mozambican government to immediately halt coal extraction operations in Moatize until an independent, community-informed assessment of the full human, environmental and health costs has been conducted and made public; to implement urgent measures to monitor, control and reduce pollution levels; to provide immediate public health responses to affected communities and ensure that they have access to justice, remedy and reparations;
• all governments, to actively support and engage on the ongoing negotiations for a strong and effective UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights, which must establish enforceable obligations and effective access to justice and remedies for affected communities like those in Moatize.

Read here the full investigation by Disclose and Socialter: https://disclose.ngo/en/article/arcelormittal-causes-environmental-and-health-disaster-in-mozambique