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| Mursi, Southwestern Ethiopia.
©Edward Mendell/Survival |
Three thousand families belonging to the farming Konso people have been
moved onto the territory of the cattle-herding Mursi and Bodi peoples.
The Mursi and Bodi live in the valley of the river Omo in the southwest
of Ethiopia; the Konso live in the highlands about 500km away, where
they have their characteristic stone-built villages and farm terraces.
The move is part of the Ethiopian government's scheme, backed by the
World Bank, to resettle 2.2 million people. The project aims to boost
agriculture and end the country's dependence on foreign food aid. The
government looks down on the Mursi and Bodi, who are generally imagined
by outsiders as nomads, wandering from place to place, holding on to
the tails of their cattle', and wants to make them settle in fixed
communities and join the modern world' by mixing Konso farmers among
them. In fact the Mursi and Bodi already live largely by farming, using
rainwater or the floodwaters of the river. The Konso find the lowlands
inhospitable, while there is actually unused farmland in their own
country. The Mursi and Bodi resent the intruders and are threatening
violence, and many of the Konso want to go home, and are evading the
police to do so.
