Ethiopia evicts thousands from farms

ETHIOPIA is forcing tens of thousands of people off their land so it can lease it to foreign investors, leaving former landowners destitute and in some cases starving, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday.

The Horn of Africa state has already leased 3 million hectares — an area just smaller than Belgium — to foreign farm businesses, and the US-based rights group said that Addis Ababa had plans to lease another 2.1m hectares.

The UN has increasingly voiced concern that countries such as China and Gulf Arab states are buying swathes of land in Africa and Asia to secure their own food supplies, often at the expense of local people.