Tanzania downplays Maasai eviction shooting reports

Alfred Lasteck & Richard Hamilton

BBC News

Human rights organisation Survival International has accused the army in Tanzania of shooting at indigenous people, to try to evict them from some of their land.

It says the army has shot at men and women with live bullets in the Loliondo district in the north of the country.

But Tanzania's Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa downplayed the reports of violence and said no-one was being evicted.

He described footage being circulated on social media as a ploy by certain factions to paint Tanzania's government in a bad light.

This article originally appeared in BBC News

Photo: BBC