Hundreds of Ugandan women fear they will not get the compensation they are fighting for after being evicted from their land as UK aid supporting their legal case is coming to an end.
Villagers in the Kijayo region of western Uganda say that between 2012 and 2015 they were removed from their homes by police at the behest of the company Hoima Sugar Ltd.
“They fired bullets around the village… They chased us from our houses and demolished them,” says Esther Turyahebwa, a single mother.
Hoima Sugar says it bought the land for use as a plantation and rejects the accusation that it evicted families, saying it had paid 142 families between £6 ($8) and £3,900 after discussions with village leaders at the time.
But in 2013, 398 families began legal proceedings against the firm. A legal judgement deciding who owns the land is yet to be made as the judge allocated to the case keeps changing.
A UK aid project aimed at helping women and girls has provided legal support to the villagers since 2017, and also trained them to find new sources of income, such as crocheting and growing vegetables in sacks, now they no longer have land to plant crops.
Source:Fiilafmonline/BBC
