300 families evicted from forest reserve remain homeless today
Morogoro. At least 300 families that were living inside the forest reserve of Maguha Village in Magole Division, Kilosa District, now have no permanent housing after the district administration had them evicted from their abodes in the forest.
The households included members of the Maasai community and subsistence farmers, who were ordered to move out of the forest reserve on September 24 this year.
The eviction order came in the form of a letter, which was apparently from the office of the Kilosa district commissioner.
The letter required the residents to immediately relocate from the forest, but did not specify any area that had been allocated for them to move into.
In the event, the farmers are having to live in the open outside the forest boundary, while the Maasai pastoralists find themselves between a rock and a hard place, with nowhere to graze their herds, or keep their families.
The Citizen visited the area which the farmers have converted into temporary settlements, and found makeshift shelters being erected and thatched with grass and tarpaulin sheets. In any case, there was no provision of essential services such as water, education and medical care.
Speaking to The Citizen, one of the pastoralists, Mr Isack Elisha, said they could not defy the government’s directive requiring them to move out of the forest. They nonetheless ask President John Magufuli to have mercy on them – and do something about their plight. This is because they have nowhere else they can go to with their teeming livestock herds, the only property they have and rely upon for an honest living.
However, in a somewhat ironic twist, the Kilosa district commissioner lauded the hitherto residents of the forest reserve for heeding the government’s order requiring them to move out the forest bag and baggage.
Then he pledged to communicate with the village government and explore how best the two authorities can identify suitable land to be allocated to the victims.
