KIA

On 8 May 2024, the police, the anti-riot police Field Force Unit (FFU), militiamen and other entities of the state-coercion apparatus invaded villages bordering Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA), invaded and displaced over 20,000 Maasai living around Kilimanjaro Airport in Northern Tanzania. Without notice, several cars belonging to the Government, with loudspeakers mounted on the car roofs and escorted by armed policemen, drove through all eight villages, warning residents to evacuate immediately. They demolished hundreds of our homes in Sanya Station Village, Hai District. With excavators guarded by heavy security, they pulled down houses, terrifying children and breaking families’ futures. Families are now sleeping outside.

A Maasai home in Sanya Station Village, Hai District lays in rubble, among hundreds of others also demolished by state forces on 8 May 2024. Credit: MISA

A press release was published by civil society organisations directing to President Suluhu Hassan to 1) immediately stop the ongoing demolition of homes; 2) bring humanitarian aid, including shelters and food, to hundreds rendered homeless; and 3) establish an independent commission of inquiry into the dispute between legally registered villages and the Tanzania Airports Authority that was awarded certificate of occupancy on already disputed land back in 2006. Tanzania airport authorities responded, denying the facts.