UN Body Reiterates Urgent Concerns Over Evictions of Maasai Indigenous People in Tanzania

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has issued an urgent communication to the Government of Tanzania, expressing deep concern over forced evictions and human rights violations against the Maasai indigenous people in the Ngorongoro and Loliondo areas in Tanzania.

In this latest communication, CERD responds to information submitted through its Early Warning and Urgent Action procedure, followed by FPP’s partner, Final Governance. CERD highlights ongoing and systemic efforts to remove Maasai communities from their ancestral lands under the guise of conservation and development, including in the expansion of Kilimanjaro International Airport and in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

CERD confirms alarming developments, including:

• The delisting of entire Maasai villages from the 2025 voter registry without consent;
• Forced evictions in nine villages near the Kilimanjaro International Airport expansion zone, carried out without consultation nor free, prior and informed consent between March and April 2024;
• Continued coercion through the withdrawal of basic social services in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to pressure communities to relocate;
• Racially motivated police violence and racial profiling of the Maasai indigenous peoples between August and October 2024;
• A lack of consultation and disproportionate impact of game reserve development projects on Maasai-inhabited areas, revealed through maps which were leaked to the public.

This follows an earlier letter CERD issued on 28 April 2023, which had already warned of plans to displace up to 150,000 Maasai from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Loliondo without their consultation. Despite these warnings, the situation ultimately worsened, leading CERD to remind Tanzania of its obligations under the Convention to “ensure that members of Maasai indigenous people have equal rights in respect of effective participation in public life and that no decisions directly relating to their rights and interests are taken without their informed consent […].”

In this latest communication, CERD also urges the Tanzanian government to recognise and protect the collective rights of the Maasai to own, manage, and benefit from their communal lands, territories, and resources, stressing that indigenous Maasai communities must be able to practice and revitalise their cultural traditions and customs. For the cases of lands, territories and resources that have been confiscated, occupied or used without free, prior and informed consent, CERD calls upon the Government of Tanzania to provide effective remedies and just compensation to the indigenous Maasai people who have been affected.

Importantly, CERD calls upon the Government of Tanzania to “strengthen its measures to ensure effective consultation with the Maasai Indigenous peoples on any projects or legislative or administrative measures that may affect their land, territories and resources and with a view to obtaining their free, prior and informed consent.”

Read the full letter