It's rush hour for Juma Olesampuerap, the only doctor on duty at the small Enkitoria clinic on the outskirts of the Kenyan Maasai village of Ololaimutiek, near the Kenyan-Tanzanian border.
Dozens of people wait outside for help.
Most are women;
the soft tinkling of their colorful beaded jewelry and the small mirror disks around their necks can be heard through an open door.
Inside, Olesampuerap examines the gunshot wound of Partalala, a young man dressed in a gray hooded sweatshirt and a
red and black checkered
shuka (traditional cloak).
Through a gaping hole in his leg you can see the white of the bone.
"Shame on the Tanzanian government," mutters the doctor as he bandages the leg.
“They are shooting at their own people.”
Partalala's face twists in pain.
A new wildlife park
On June 9, the day before the incident, three agents showed up in Ololosokwan, a town in Loliondo (northern Tanzania), according to the version of the neighbors.
They wanted to drive a concrete post into the ground to indicate where a new wildlife park would soon be built, Partalala recalls.
The hunting license for the park, which will cover approximately 1.5 square kilometres, is held by the Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company.
According to a 2019 UN report, OBC is a luxury yacht company that was granted a hunting license in Tanzania in 1992 “enabling the UAE royal family to organize private hunting trips.”
Although you mainly go to southern Africa for this activity, trophy hunting is also not prohibited in Tanzania.
But under international human rights treaties signed by Tanzania, the Maasai, an ethnic group of nomadic herders, must first give permission to use their traditional habitat.
"Expulsion without prior authorization is a violation of human rights," says the UN special rapporteur, Balakrishnan Rajagopal.
"Eviction in the name of conservation, safari tourism and trophy hunting threatens their physical and cultural survival."
That is why, when the police wanted to demarcate the area in early June, the Maasai said that it had to be discussed first with the elders of the surrounding tribes.
Gathering in the border area of Ololosokwan the next day, they say, they were visited by police officers who fired shots and tear gas canisters.
More than 30 people were injured, according to neighbors.
“Misleading”: this is how the Tanzanian Prime Minister, Kassim Majaliwa, describes the bloody videos that have been circulating on social networks since then.
The authorities affirm that no injuries were reported, and that only one agent died, hit in the eye by an arrow fired by the Maasai.
For this reason, 27 members of this ethnic minority have been arrested, accused of murder.
"Behind there is Tanzania," says the injured Partalala when the doctor finishes his leg.
He points, through the small window in the yellow walls of the room, at the rolling hills some 15 kilometers away.
He and “thousands more” came down those hills after the police attack, he explains.
However, Partalala does not remember anything about that trip.
He lost consciousness after being hit in the leg;
the bullet went through it.
His fellow villagers did not dare to take him to a Tanzanian hospital, because "they are run by the same government that shot us."
He woke up in Kenya.
“A new colonialism”
In many places in Africa they employ a conservation model that activists call “fortress conservation”.
This one, which dates back to colonial times, tries to keep the original inhabitants out of the natural areas as much as possible, in the name of environmental conservation.
However, the indigenous population increasingly demands their own management and protection of the national parks in which, in many cases, they have lived for hundreds of years.
“When the government works with foreign investors and does not cooperate with the people who already live in the areas, it is a new type of colonialism,” says a Tanzanian Maasai leader who asks to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
"Relocations" are nothing new, he says.
According to him, the Maasai population of Tanzania (about 400,000 people in total) has been intimidated for decades.
“The government regularly goes to villages to say they need land for wildlife parks or factories.
We have nothing to say about it."
The national government of President Samia Hassan Suluhu does not take into account in its decisions the wishes of local and regional authorities in which the Maasai are represented, says the leader.
“They have been the lifeblood of this area for centuries,” he continues.
“How can you take that away from them?
Then there is an empty and withered land, without life.
Lawyers, activists and human rights groups are also sounding the alarm.
They claim that more than 70,000 semi-nomadic herders living in the northern Loliondo region are being forced to make way for private hunting grounds.
The Tanzanian government denies any eviction or deportation, but does not allow independent investigators or journalists to enter Loliondo
The Tanzanian government denies any eviction or deportation, but does not allow independent investigators or journalists to enter Loliondo.
The intention is for UN human rights monitors to visit Tanzania, but it is not yet clear when they will be welcomed.
The observers will also visit Ngorongoro, another area in the north where the Maasai are being displaced.
According to the UN, 165,000 have been affected by the relocation plans in the two zones;
in total there are about 40,000 living in Tanzania.
Concern for human rights
Human rights in Tanzania have come under increasing pressure in recent years.
President Magufuli, who led the East African country from 2015 until his death in 2021 and who was nicknamed The Steamroller, silenced unwelcome media and opposition members and halted HIV programs.
In 2018, the World Bank canceled a €265 million loan, amid concerns about government policies that prevent pregnant girls from attending school.
When Magufuli passed away suddenly in March 2021, former Vice President Hassan Suluhu took her place.
Since her appointment, ties between Tanzania and the UAE have been strengthened.
During Hassan's visit to Dubai in February, it was announced that the UAE will invest more than €7 billion in Tanzania over the next four years.
According to the activists, this agreement cannot be separated from what is happening now in Loliondo.
For the Maasai living on the Kenyan side of the border, welcoming Tanzanians makes sense.
These have also recently been housed in a Maasai settlement outside Ololaimutiek.
“Several families came,” says tribal elder Ole Ndaika, “and they told us terrible stories.”
Beneath his New York Yankees cap, he gazes teary-eyed at the dry land.
“They don't have to ask if they can stay here,” he says.
“They are our brothers and sisters, and they are in trouble.”
In his house, full of children, it is suffocatingly hot.
Ole Ndaika, who lives here with his two wives and six children, has taken in two Tanzanian women and his children.
"We're having a hard time," says the old man.
“There is not enough space or food.”
The Kenyan Maasai do not receive any help from the Kenyan government, they say.
Ole Ndaika points to a small bed-box.
“We only have three small beds for 15 people,” he says.
"The children sleep on the floor."
Kiramatisho is sitting on one of the battered mattresses nursing her baby.
“Her son was born while she was on the run to Kenya,” explains Ole Ndaika sadly, “in the bush.”
A few hours later, her husband had to return with the cows, her most important possession.
The 25-year-old woman is worried;
She hasn't talked to him in weeks.
“I am afraid that they will stop him, beat him up or shoot him,” she says.
Although Kiramatisho's husband is likely still hiding in the thick bush with his cows, many drove their cattle across the Kenyan border, Dr. Olesampuerap noted.
He fears ethnic conflicts over land and food between the Kenyan and Tanzanian communities.
“Now there are cows everywhere,” says the doctor, “but there is no grass and no rain.
The situation is untenable.
People will die, many children are already malnourished.”
After consultation time at the clinic, Dr. Olesampuerap sits in a leather desk chair.
The more he talks about the events, the more he becomes outraged.
“Since time immemorial, we have lived in harmony with nature,” he exclaims.
"We don't hunt animals and we don't even eat their meat."
Thanks to the Maasai there are still wild animals in Loliondo, he stresses.
“And now people are being killed so that the Arabs can come and kill animals?
It's inconceivable."
During the doctor's harangue, Partalala keeps looking at the hills on the horizon.
"It's not just my body that suffers," she comments after a moment, holding her injured leg.
“My livelihood and my family are in danger.
I don't know where my children are, my cows have nowhere to graze here.
The police continue to occupy the land that we inherited from our ancestors.
If we don't get it back, we will die."
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