Tanzanian authorities seen opening fire on Maasai people in game reserve dispute

By Chloé Farand

Tanzanian authorities have been filmed opening fire on Maasai people in the northern Ngorongoro district, an area popular with tourists, following a dispute over turning land used for grazing into a game reserve.

Footage shared on social media shows people running from gun shots in the Loliondo area. Further images shared with Climate Home News showed people with small bullet wounds on their leg, feet, top of their back and even on someone’s head.[...]

“Despite earlier pauses, the Tanzanian government is blindly moving ahead with plans to remove Maasai pastoralists out of their land to clear the way for trophy hunting,” said Anuradha Mittal, of the environmental think tank Oakland Institute. “International mobilisation on these developments is imperative to help stop this disastrous and illegal move.”

Mittal argued that the forced evictions in the area would violate a 2018 East African Court of Justice injunction, which prohibited the Tanzanian government from evicting Maasai people or engaging in harassment against those living on the contested land.