PHOTOS: Members of evicted tribe say they’re left with nowhere to go

The Kilombero Valley, where the Barabaig people live, is one of the areas where SAGCOT is investing in commercial agriculture. The Tanzanian government launched SAGCOT in 2010 to promote economic growth in Tanzania’s southern corridor, which covers a third of mainland Tanzania extending from the capital, Dar es Salaam, to Tanzania’s border with Zambia. Over a 20-year period, SAGCOT aims to convert 350,000 hectares of land into commercial production, boost annual farming revenues by $1.2 billion and lift roughly 450,000 farming households out of poverty,  the Tanzanian government estimated.

Salumu Kundaya Kidomwita, 60, saunters down a trail to his wife Malinja’s hut on his way back from market day in nearby Nambogo, where multiple tribes meet to sell everything from livestock to maize and cloth. Kiodomwita says he has a lot on his mind, but for now it’s rain season and says when “the grass is green, it is peace.” “The Barabaig like to blend in and not disturb nature,” he says. The Barabaig people’s lack of visibility, however, has led to many land disputes in recent decades.

Kidomwita with five members of his large family at their boma — Kidomwita is an elder of the tribe, and has four wives and 22 children. Bomas, made of dung, mud and sticks, are meant to be temporary abodes for the Barabaig, who traditionally move with their herds throughout the year. The structures are made from found materials so they meld with the surrounding environment, something that is valued by the Barabaig.

Udenda Gidaghorjod, 20, and her mother, Udangashega Wembida, 40, in traditional Barabaig dress at home. “It is the farmers who are invited to meetings about our land, not us,” said Wembida, a mother of two from Kwa Wagonzi. Now “we are threatened with the bulldozers and roads being made for business. We are told by village leaders to go where we came — but that is here!”

Cattle being herded from Nambogo market by Barabaig herders.

Udamugh, whose name means “waiting to heal,” fingers the yellow beads around her neck. She says she was forced to settle in Mkombani four years ago when park rangers from Mikumi National Park shot six of her cows, one by one, as she watched from inside her boma. “No words were exchanged,” she says. “I was so upset. My family went to the district council to file a complaint but no one investigated. To this day we have not been compensated. To the government I say, tell us where to go to have peace.”

A portrait of young Barabaig woman and child.

A Barabaig woman and her siblings. According to a report by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, the Barabaig have been targeted for state-sponsored evictions for half a century. “Operation Barabaig” was a program designed to permanently settle Barabaig herders, forcing families from their homes and seizing their rangelands for tourism and commercial agriculture interests.

“We are not settling well here,” says one Barabaig woman. “For decades, we move, come back, move, come back, chased by our government, the park rangers and farmers. We are tired. We are old. But the threats continue.”