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Mursi Online website launched
Meeting of pastoralists in South Omo Zone planned for 8-12 November
The following news release was issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Addis Ababa, on 30 October 2007
African Parks to give up its management of the Omo National Park
Visit to Kenyan Community Conservancies
In May 2008 a small group from northern Mursiland spent two weeks visiting the Melako, Sera, Namunyak and Kalama Community Conservancies in Kenya. They learnt about the management, benefits and challenges of these conservancies, and had discussions with members of the Maasai, Rendille and Samburu communities which are actively involved in them.
First Mursi to visit Europe
Serious food shortages in the Lower Omo
Food shortage worsens along the Omo
‘There is no singing and dancing anywhere along the Omo River now. The people are too hungry. The children are quiet. We adults just go into a shelter to sleep, silently........
Chinese loan for the Gibe III hydroelectric dam
On 16 May 2010, Ethiopia’s Capital newspaper reported that the Gibe III hydroelectric dam, now under construction in the middle basin of the Omo-Gibe River system, is to receive a long term loan of nearly half a billion USD from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
New film on the Mursi screened at two recent European film festivals
'Shooting with Mursi', a DFID/UK AID film made by Ben Young with Olisarali Olibui, was selected for screening at the 30th Cinéma du Réel Documentary Film Festival in Paris (24 March – 3 April 2010) and at the 10th Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival (12-16 May 2010).
Mursi Online: new features and content
We should like to alert visitors to the following new features and content which have recently been added to the website.
New network formed to promote human rights in conservation
JUST CONSERVATION is a Facebook page dedicated to promoting justice and respect for human rights in the activities of conservation organisations
Huge irrigation scheme planned for the Lower Omo Valley
Speaking in Jinka, capital of South Omo Zone, on 25 January 2011, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi announced plans to convert 150,000 ha. of the Lower Omo Valley into irrigated sugar cane plantations.
Ethiopia responds to UNESCO's World Heritage Committee on Lake Turkana
UNESCO's concerns about the impact of the Gibe III dam and irrigation development on Lake Turkana are 'one sided and highly biased', says the Ethiopian Government.
The Death of Komorakora
Komorakora, who died on 21 January 2012, was the komoru (politico-ritual leader) of the northern Mursi for most of the last fifty years.
A new look for Mursi Online
In the five years since it was launched, Mursi Online has become the most widely used source of accurate information about the Mursi on the web and feedback from visitors has been consistently positive.
New report on the future of Lake Turkana
A new report on the impact of the Gibe III dam and associated irrigation development on the hydrology of Lake Turkana is now available.
US bans financing for activities in Lower Omo that ‘directly or indirectly involve forced evictions’.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) have always claimed that there is no evidence of ‘systematic’ human rights abuses being carried out by the Ethiopian government in pursuit of its development plans in the Lower Omo.
What Future for Lake Turkana?
In a new paper entitled "What future for lake Turkana: the impact of hydropower and irrigation development on the world’s largest desert lake", the Nairobi based hydrologist and consulting engineer, Dr Sean Avery, considers the impacts on the lake of river basin development in the Omo Valley. The paper is based on reports submitted by Dr Avery to the African Development Bank (2010) and to the African Studies Centre at Oxford University (2012).
Photograph taken at Makki by Anna Albiach (2012)
Anna Albiach, Makki, Mago Valley, 2012
Mursi Exhibition at the Valencia Botanical Gardens
'Under the Shade of the Ragai Tree' (Al'Ombra del Ragai') is an exhibition at the Valencia Botanical Gardens (Jardí Botànic de Valencia) running from 3rd April to 2nd June.
Donor balancing act on human rights in the Lower Omo Valley
The Development Assistance Group (DAG), a body of 27 development agencies working in Ethiopia, has written to the Ethiopian Government about assessment visits it has made over the past two years to resettlement sites in the west, south and east of the country, including the Lower Omo Valley. The letter manages a delicate balancing act.
Forthcoming article on the impacts of displacement and resettlement in the Lower Omo Valley
The lower Omo is set to become the largest irrigation complex in Ethiopia, with the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation’s ‘Kuraz Sugar Development Project’ as its centrepiece. This will require the forced displacement and ‘villagization’ of thousands of agro-pastoralists. Since villagization began in 2012, Edward (Jed) Stevenson and Lucie Buffavand have been studying its impacts on the food security and well-being of the resettlers, using both household surveys and long term ethnographic research.
Remembering Kirinomeri
We are very sorry to have to record the recent death, at Makki, of Kirinomeri (Ulikuri) Tuku, one of the most respected and influential leaders of the northern Mursi during the past forty years. He died on 22 Dec 2017. He will be remembered best, perhaps, for motivating and inspiring the successful migration of members of the Baruba bhuran to Makki in 1979/80, an achievement that will secure his place as a major figure in Mursi history. The following is a personal tribute to Kirinomeri from the anthropologist, Dr Shauna LaTosky (Ngamargo).
Forced disarmament in the Lower Omo Valley
Wed 30 Oct 2019
Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Ethiopian PM
Wed 30 Oct 2019
David Turton (1940-2023)
Obituary by Jed Stevenson
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