The UN on Friday has warned that the Maasai Indigenous Peoples in Tanzania are facing forced evictions and violent law enforcement abuses, raising alarm over escalating human rights violations.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has urged Tanzania to “immediately halt the forced eviction of Maasai Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral lands and territories in Ngorongoro, Loliondo region and other affected areas and to ensure that when forced eviction cannot be avoided, the families and individuals affected are provided with adequate alternative housing and compensation, and that effective remedies are in all cases available to those affected in cases of eviction.”
Tanzania must uphold its obligations under international law, particularly those stemming from articles 2, 4, 5 and 6 of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) to which it is a party, and guarantee that the Maasai Indigenous Peoples can fully exercise their rights without discrimination. This includes ensuring their equal protection before the law and their meaningful participation in decisions that affect them.
The UN Committee called on Tanzania to promptly release the findings and recommendations of the presidential commissions established in February 2025, and to guarantee transparency as well as the meaningful involvement of Maasai Indigenous Peoples in all decisions concerning the future of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It further urged the State to provide comprehensive details on the steps taken to implement the recommendations outlined in this Statement, including updates on the situation of the Maasai, within its combined seventeenth and eighteenth periodic reports. These reports have been overdue since 26 November 2007 and should be submitted without further delay.
The Maasai are an indigenous, semi-nomadic Nilotic ethnic group whose ancestral homelands span across the vast savannas of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. Having migrated from the Upper Nile Valley centuries ago, their culture, economy, and spiritual life revolve almost entirely around semi-nomadic pastoralism and the deep reverence they hold for their cattle.
Instantly recognizable by their vibrant red garments called shukas, intricate beadwork, and rich oral history, they are also known for an egalitarian social structure organized by age-sets. Despite facing historical land displacement from colonial treaties and modern wildlife conservation policies, the Maasai continue to protect and advocate for their traditional grazing rights and resilient cultural identity.
The ongoing repression of the Maasai people stem from a deeply rooted conflict between state-driven commercial interests, colonial-era conservation policies, and Indigenous land rights. They have been subjected to similar patterns of violence in the past, where they were severely injured by Tanzanian soldiers and forcibly displaced, despite a 2018 East African Court of Justice ruling forbidding the country from stripping them of their land.