Human rights abuses flagged at oil project

A massive oil project in Uganda co-owned by French group TotalEnergies and China's CNOOC is mired in reports of sexual violence, forced evictions and environmental damage, climate activists have warned. News24 reports that the $10bn investment includes drilling for oil in the Lake Albert area in northwestern Uganda and building a 1 443km heated pipeline to ship the crude to Tanzania's Indian Ocean port of Tanga. Climate Rights International (CRI), a non-profit organisation, interviewed dozens of local residents for a report that listed a ‘Catalogue of Abuses’ at the Kingfisher project. ‘It is appalling that a project that is touted as bringing prosperity to the people of Uganda is instead leaving them the victims of violence, intimidation and poverty,’ CRI executive director Brad Adams said in a statement. The report said residents of villages in the Kingfisher area described ‘being forcibly evicted, often with little or no notice’, by the military. Families also described ‘pressure and intimidation’ by officials from TotalEnergies's Ugandan subsidiary and its subcontractors ‘to agree to low levels of compensation that was inadequate to buy replacement land’.

Full News24 report