ECADF | Oakland, CA — (Oakland Institute) The Guardian has reviewed and confirmed the findings of the Institute’s latest report How They Tricked Us, which exposes the devastation of the Gibe III Dam and associated sugarcane plantations on Indigenous communities in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley.
How They Tricked Us: Living with the Gibe III Dam and Sugarcane Plantations in Southwest Ethiopia details how local communities have lost essential farmland and grazing land as a result of these projects. Acute hunger is now common with the dam’s blockage of the annual flood—a natural event that the inhabitants of the valley have relied on for centuries for cultivation.
A recent trip by The Guardian to the Omo Valley confirms our report’s findings. Journalists interviewed several individuals who shared their own accounts of displacement and lack of services.