Partners of Initiative for Equality (IfE) in the African Great Lakes region (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and Rwanda) have released a series of Field Reports documenting human rights abuses, land grabs, extrajudicial detentions, torture and killings of Indigenous people in the region. The Batwa and Bambuti people are considered to be the oldest inhabitants, and until recently were nomadic hunter-gatherers in the forests of the Congo Basin. Their traditional land rights pose an impediment to international timber, minerals, hydropower and palm oil interests and their financial backers.
See and read the Field Reports here. These reports will be updated periodically as new information comes in. The IfE partners submitting these reports are not named in order to protect their safety.
For more information, contact IfE at info@initiativeforequality.org. To learn how you can get involved in defending the Batwa and Bambuti people, click here.