Twenty-six Ugandans and five French and Ugandan associations have launched a call for compensation in France today for the French oil company TotalEnergies to pay for losses resulting from its controversial mega-projects in Uganda.

The activists demanding these compensations and criticizing the Tilenga and EACOP projects are suffering threats, and some have already been harassed and arrested, reported the RDP. The projects have caused humanitarian damage and environmental invasion.

The compensation demanded by the activists should cover around 18,000 people in Uganda and Tanzania whose land has been partially and/or totally expropriated.

The Tilenga project consists of six fields and 419 oil wells in 31 locations, a third of them in a Ugandan nature park and biodiversity reserve.

The EACOP project involves a 1,443 km underground pipeline between the town of Kabaale in Uganda and the port of Tanga in Tanzania, where it encroaches on several protected natural areas.