‘It’s becoming a war zone’: Tanzania’s Maasai speak out on ‘forced’ removals

Maasai women and children from Ngorongoro hold a prayer meeting on Tanzania’s border with Kenya, to which thousands have fled. Photograph: Daniel Irungu/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Late last year, William Ole Seki, a Maasai elder, ascended to the top of a dry, grassy Tanzanian hillside where about a dozen Maasai had gathered. From there, Ngorongoro conservation area’s 2m acres (809,000 hectares) of woodland and plains expand to the horizon in every direction. Cattle and zebras graze on dry tufts of grass, near to small clusters of bomas (traditional Maasai houses).

To the south, a road sweeps Toyota Land Cruisers carrying tourists to the gates of the Serengeti national park. In the distance looms the Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God, a sacred place of worship for the Maasai, a semi-nomadic pastoralist ethnic group who live in Tanzania and Kenya.