Residents of Ngorongoro district in Arusha region have, for the second time, filed a stop order against looming eviction from a disputed land.
That is until a pending case they filed before the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) way back in 2017 is determined.
The stop order also seeks to prohibit any development on the 1,500 square kilometre area prior to the Court's ruling.
The case was filed before the regional Court by herders from four villages,objecting the land's allocation to a hunting company.
"This is the second stop order. The first was requested in 2018", said Daniel Rogey, a resident of Olorien village in Loliondo division.
He was speaking to journalists on Friday at the East African Community (EAC) headquarters after filing their objection at the regional Court.
Mr. Rogey and a dozen other herders alleged that some of them had been threatened with eviction from the disputed area.
The stop order was filed by the herders through the Pan African Lawyers' Union (Palu), a continental forum of lawyers based in Arusha.
The applicants are four villagers in the remote Loliondo division being Ololosokwan,Olorien, Kirtalo and Arash.
The disputed land borders the Serengeti national park to the west and the Ngorogoro Conservation Area (NCA) to the south.
The petitioners allege that eviction of the livestock herders from the area would displace 70,000 pastoralists and their 200,000 animals.
Yohana Toroge, the chairman of Kirtalo village, urged the government not to interfere with the case at the EACJ pending decision of the court.
Any interference, he argued, would not only amount to contempt of court but also denial of the indigenous communities of their ancestral land.
Parmaari Merika, the chairman of Olorien village said eviction would also affect the twelve other villages in Loliondo and Salle divisions, making a total of 16.
The threat of a looming eviction of the herders from the disputed area comes on the heels of a recent visit there by the Arusha regional commissioner John Mongela.
During his January 11th, 2022 visit, the regional boss told the community leaders that the government has not slept on the matter.
The government, he affirmed during a meeting at Wasso township, was going to make tough decisions "even if this will be painful to the Maasai".
This was interpreted by the members of the local communities that the government's position on imminent eviction was indeed there.
The community representatives later snubbed an on-the-spot visit to the disputed land by the RC in the company of other senior officials.
The planned forceful eviction is believed to be a continuation of a protracted attempt to free the area to be leased to a hunting firm.
The Dubai-based Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC) owned by Dubai Royals has been permitted to hunt wild animals in the area since the early 1990s.
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