Tanzania: Police allegedly kill & wound members of Maasai community during eviction for Otterlo Business Corporation conversation & hunting reserve
On June 8 2022, dozens of police vehicles and an estimated 700 officers arrived in Loliondo, North Tanzania, near the world-famous Serengeti National Park, to demarcate a 1,500 km2 area of Maasai land as a Game Reserve. On June 10 they fired on Maasai protesting efforts to evict them: at least 18 men and 13 women were shot, and 13 wounded with machetes. One person is confirmed dead.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Otterlo Business Company (OBC) — which runs hunting excursions for the country’s royal family and their guests — will reportedly control commercial hunting in the area.
NGO Survival International reported that, following the violence, thousands of Maasai people fled their homes and police are going house-to-house beating & arresting people they believe distributed images of the eviction.
In April, we invited Otterlo Business Company to respond to allegations regarding the mass eviction of Maasai people for commercial conservation & hunting; it did not.
“Our government has decided to unleash the full power of the military to oust us from our land, leaving many injured by gunshots, children roaming in the bush, and we have moved to sleep in the bush. The government is refusing to treat the injured. Many people are without food. And this is our ancestral land. This is barbaric to take our land for luxury hunting of the UAE leaders.”Anonymous Maasai leader
“This violence that we see in Tanzania is the reality of conservation in Africa and Asia: daily violations of the human rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities so that the ‘rich’ can hunt and go on safari....We can no longer turn a blind eye to human rights abuses committed in the name of ‘conservation.’"Fiore Longo, Survival International