Advocacy & campaigns: Ethiopia - Land and water grabs threaten half a million lives
Oakland, CA- A new Land Deal Brief from the Oakland Institute (OI)
exposes that the controversial Gibe III hydroelectric project located
in Ethiopia's Omo Valley, portrayed as development, is facilitating the
take over of 350,000 hectares (ha) of land for sugar cane and cotton
plantations and resulting in state-sponsored human rights violations,
which have escaped international attention so far. A UNESCO World
Heritage Site, the Lower Omo Valley is home to approximately 200,000
agro-pastoralists made up of some of Africa's most unique and
traditional ethnic groups, including the Kwegu, Bodi, Suri, Mursi,
Nyangatom, Hamer, Karo, and Dassenach among others and contains two
National Parks. The project also threatens an additional 300,000
agro-pastoralists who rely on the waters of the Lake Turkana in Kenya,
fed by the Omo River.