In the lush green hills of western Uganda, 88-year-old Ukura Midar sits on the front stoop of his new brick house, his frail frame nearly as thin as the walking stick he clutches. His eyes, clouded with age and sorrow, gaze into the distance toward land he can no longer access — land where his family lived, farmed and were buried for more than 50 years.
"Here, I feel bad," Midar says, his voice heavy with grief. "There I felt very fine. I had my land. I had distributed land to my children to cultivate. There's nothing here."
In 2017, Midar was forced from his family's house to make way for an airport that would serve Uganda's burgeoning oil industry. The government relocated him and almost his entire community to a settlement called Kyakaboga, 15 miles from the place he had called home for decades.
But the physical displacement is only part of Midar's loss. Behind a fence now guarded by Uganda's military lie the graves of several family members, including three of his children — a spiritual connection severed by development.
"It makes me feel sick, my whole body hurts thinking about it," Midar explains, his weathered hands trembling slightly. "Their spirits can haunt you and make you sick. I think it is what makes me sick."
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline
Midar's story is just one among thousands unfolding across Uganda as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project takes shape. Led by French energy giant Total and Chinese partners, the project promises economic benefits but threatens to displace approximately 100,000 people from their homes and livelihoods.
The nearly 900-mile pipeline will transport crude oil from Uganda's Lake Albert region to Tanzania's port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean. Supporters tout the project's potential to transform Uganda's economy through oil exports, but for communities in its path, the immediate reality is disruption and loss.
Juliette Renaud of the advocacy group Friends of the Earth sees Midar's experience as part of a global pattern. "Around the world, there is an endless number of big energy projects that have not only led to the grabbing of the land of many communities, but by doing so, are also violating and attacking their cultural rights and identity," she explains.
Families torn apart, social fabric unraveling
The pipeline's impact extends beyond physical displacement, often fracturing family bonds that have held communities together for generations.
Diana Nabiruma, who works with the Uganda-based non-profit Africa Institute for Energy Governance, has documented numerous cases of family separation. "In some instances, physical barriers have been created, and they've actually split families into two or into several parts," she says. "The pipeline went in between homesteads so that one part of the family stayed the other way and the other part stayed another way." Adult siblings or elderly parents and children could be separated in this way, relocated to different sides of the proposed project - to follow the companies' pre-approved plans.
Even more insidious is how compensation money has strained family relationships. "You find that families have also been divided, because when compensation money is coming to families, greed arises, unfortunately, and some family members have turned against other family members," Nabiruma explains.
For 38-year-old Jacklin, a mother of nine children ranging from 2 to 21 years old, the pipeline's compensation process contributed to her marriage's collapse and she says left her family destitute.
"Since he received the pipeline money, he just went on a marriage spree and he now has three wives," Jacklin says of her husband, who essentially vanished after receiving his share of the compensation. "I now suffer with the children because he abandoned them. As their mother, I have no say." NPR is not using her full name because doing so could put her personal safety at risk.
Once a small-scale farmer working alongside her husband, Jacklin now struggles alone to provide for her children. "I now handle everything single handedly, I have no support. I have to suffer and dig. The children need food. The children need school fees. The children had to drop out of school. None of my children go to school."
The $2,700 she received in compensation went toward building a new home that remains unfinished as the money ran out. For now, she lives in the unfinished home, close to her old shack, and continues to farm her old land in secret, knowing that once pipeline construction reaches her plot, even this tenuous lifeline — that relies on the maize and other crops she grows — will be cut.
The oil development has undeniably altered the social dynamics of communities, sometimes in similarly unexpected ways. Nabiruma says the influx of oil workers with relatively high salaries, for instance, has also frequently affected family structures too.
These communities are already facing economic uncertainties; have been forced from their homes; or expect they may be soon. These additional social pressures mean their traditional support systems — extended families and neighbors - are now fragmenting too, with cultural traditions also being lost.
Environmental and health impacts
Beyond such societal disruptions, the oil development has brought significant environmental and health challenges.
Sixty-year-old Bassima Joram, a relatively prosperous landowner with several acres of crops, alongside dozens of goats and fruit trees, now lives beside a newly constructed road connecting the airport to oil pads near Lake Albert. The constant traffic has transformed his once-peaceful home into a place of stress and sleeplessness.
"I could actually also feel myself being shaken. I could feel myself shake, and that one could take away all my ease, and it could stress me personally," Joram says of the vibrations from passing vehicles.
The road construction has also damaged water sources. Contractors dumped displaced soil into nearby water supplies, silting them up and forcing residents to travel farther for fresh water. Joram helped establish a grievance committee to address these issues, but their complaints to the Chinese contractors, the local district government, the local district environmental officer, and also Uganda's National Roads Authority (UNRA) have all gone unanswered.
"Psychologically, they feel bad — but nothing to do. Nothing to do. You see when you talk and you are not heard. Or when you think that even if you talk, you will not be respected, your views will not be respected," he explains. "That will actually affect your human psychology."
The Chinese contractors, part of the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOC), did not respond to requests for comment. The Ugandan energy ministry said its record had demonstrated "full transparency and accountability," and in an emailed statement said companies like CNOOC must comply with conditions set by the country's environment management authority. "Compliance is enforced through regular environmental audits, water quality monitoring, and community-based feedback systems," the ministry said.
Disappointment with compensation
A common thread running through these stories is the issue of compensation. While affected residents received payment for their land and crops, many describe a process that left them feeling powerless and undervalued.
"They came with some values for the crops that were on the plot and the land itself. But it was not actually — it was not between me and them, it was their decision upon how much they would wish and love to give to me," Joram recalls of his compensation experience.
When asked if there was any room for maneuver, his answer is unequivocal: "There was no negotiation at all."
Though Joram received more than $30,000 for his land — significantly more than many of his neighbors — he maintains it wasn't nearly enough to replace what he lost. The compensation failed to account for the lifetime of income and family wealth his land provided.
"My expectations was long term, was in terms of sustainability," he explains. "Now giving me my expectation was getting a little money for 200 years. Now, you give me 100 million [Ugandan shillings - equivalent to $28,000] today, how much do you think I can keep it?"
A pattern repeated
Advocates like Renaud and Nabiruma emphasize that what's happening in Uganda follows a pattern seen in extractive industry projects worldwide. While governments and companies highlight economic benefits and development opportunities, the lived experiences of affected communities often tell a different story.
The psychological toll is particularly profound. For elders like Midar, separation from ancestral lands and graves represents not just a physical loss but a spiritual wound that may never heal, in a culture where proximity to family graves is key to a cultural sense of good fortune. For parents like Jacklin, the economic disruption has meant watching her children's future opportunities diminish as they drop out of school.
And for community leaders like Joram, the experience has revealed the limits of their agency in the face of powerful corporate and government interests. Despite forming committees and writing letters, their grievances remain largely unaddressed.
As Uganda's oil industry continues to develop, with production expected to begin in the coming years, these communities find themselves caught between promises of national prosperity and the immediate reality of disrupted lives, with costs that rarely appear in economic impact assessments or corporate sustainability reports.
In a response to questions from NPR, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, led by French giant Total in partnership with Chinese and Uganda oil companies, said it has "demonstrated a strong commitment to fair restitution and financial settlements in line with both national legislation and international best practices. "
In a statement, it said it offered financial literacy training to help local people make "informed decisions about their compensation," adding that the vast majority of people affected by the oil projects had received "full replacement value for their assets."
For now, Midar continues to sit on his stoop, longing for the graves of his children that lie behind a fence he cannot cross. Jacklin farms in secret, knowing her borrowed time on her former land is running out. And Joram continues to wake up to the vibrations of trucks passing on the road outside his home, carrying workers and equipment to the very oil fields that forever changed his community.
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