More than 70,000 Indigenous Maasai people are at risk of being evicted from their ancestral grazing lands to make way for a tourism operation after a paramilitary group arrived on 7 June in the Maasai town of Loliondo, in Arusha Region of Northern Tanzania, to implement the authorities’ plans to seize the ancestral and registered land of the Maasai people. On 9 June, community members began to protest the demarcation but were met with force by security officers, who used teargas and firearms against the protestors. 25 community members were arrested and have since been charged with conspiracy to commit the murder of a police officer. The authorities must end the security operation in Loliondo, immediately release the arrested persons and suspend any ongoing land acquisition plans.
