Forced Relocation
The Ethiopian government relocated forcibly ca 70,000 indigenous people from the Gambela Region between 2010 to January 2012 to new villages that lack adequate food, farmland, healthcare, and educational facilities. State security forces threatened, assaulted, and arbitrarily arrested villagers who resisted the transfers. From 2008 through January 2011, Ethiopia leased out at least 3.6 million hectares of land, an area the size of the Netherlands. An additional 2.1 million hectares of land is available through the federal government’s land bank for agricultural investment. In Gambella, 42 percent of the land is marketed for investors.
Gambela Region has a population of 307,000, mainly indigenous Anuak and Nuer. Its richly fertile soil has attracted foreign and domestic investors who have leased large tracts of land at favourable prices.
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Ethiopia
Famous quotes containing the word forced:
“It is unheard-of, uncivilized barbarism that any woman should still be forced to bear such monstrous torture. It should be remedied. It should be stopped. It is simply absurd that, with our modern science, painless childbirth does not exist as a matter of course.... I tremble with indignation when I think of ... the unspeakable egotism and blindness of men of science who permit such atrocities when they can be remedied.”
—Isadora Duncan (1878–1927)