Tanzania, evicted and deprived of the vote, the Maasai block the roads: protests also against forced transfers

ROMA – Hundreds of members of the Maasai community – we learn from Blackness – blocked the main road in Ngorongoro National Park, in northern Tanzania, to protest the denial of their right to vote and the loss of their ancestral lands. The Maasai live on the highlands on the border between Kenya and Tanzania, traditionally nomadic herders, transhumant, but today often sedentary. A report of the NGO Human Rights Watch of last July entitled “It’s Like Killing Culture” (It’s Like Killing a Culture) documents the existence of a relocation program that the government launched in 2022 with the aim of evicting and relocating 82,000 Maasai 600 kilometers from their ancestral land.

Physical violence and restrictions on access to water. Even though the community members do not want to submit to this measure, physical violence, restrictions on access to water and the withdrawal of medical personnel from the area are forcing them to leave their homes. Other sources report that the number of people at risk of losing their homes is even higher, and is estimated to be around 110,000.

Alleged threats to the environment from herds. According to what the government of Dodoma claims – reports Blackness – the move is necessary to preserve the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The constant growth of the Maasai population and their herds is considered a possible threat to the conservation of the natural area. According to officials, the move is voluntary. These claims are denied by residents of the area, for whom a law is also being prepared to prohibit any resident from remaining on park land.

The electoral question. While denial of access to basic services is not a new problem in Ngorongoro, the latest protest is primarily a reaction to the community’s alleged denial of the right to vote in local elections next November and parliamentary elections in October 2025. On August 3, Maasai community leaders called a press conference to denounce the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s move of voters from Ngorongoro to Msomera, 370 kilometres away. Only 2% of Ngorongoro residents have so far moved to the area where voters have already been moved.

Those 100,000 voters of Ngorongoro. “When the government issued an order advising where voter registration would be done and where polling stations would be located, it did not mention Ngorongoro district, which is 8,000 square kilometres and has 100,000 voters, most of them Maasai,” said Joseph Oleshangay, a human rights activist from the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA), an alliance of international organizations supporting the Maasai of northern Tanzania.