A United Nations committee sounded the alarm Friday over forced evictions and abuses targeting Tanzania’s Maasai Indigenous people, warning of escalating rights violations.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged Tanzania to immediately halt evictions from ancestral lands in Ngorongoro and Loliondo.
The panel demanded adequate alternative housing, compensation and effective remedies for families forced from territories they have called home for generations.
Tanzania must honor obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the committee stressed firmly.
It called for transparency and meaningful Maasai participation in every decision shaping the future of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
The committee also pressed Tanzania to release findings from presidential commissions formed in February 2025 without further delay.
Semi-nomadic pastoralists draped in vivid red shukas, the Maasai have long defended their grazing lands against conservation-driven displacement.
A 2018 East African Court of Justice ruling had already barred Tanzania from stripping the community of its territory.