The shores of Lake Albert, in western Uganda. In 2006, 6.5bn barrels of crude oil were discovered in the subsoil of the lake, of which 1.4bn are recoverable with current drilling technology. This is the equivalent of two years’ consumption in, for example, France, and enough to propel Uganda – a small, poor, landlocked country – to become the fourth-largest hydrocarbon producer in sub-Saharan Africa

The area around Lake Albert is now a huge construction site. After years of discussions between the Ugandan government and international oil companies, TotalEnergies of France won the largest deposit. It has since drilled 400 oil wells, including 100 in the middle of the Murchison Falls national park, a haven of biodiversity vital for Uganda’s tourism industry. The Chinese oil company CNOOC won the exploitation rights to a smaller field south of the lake

Once extracted, the crude oil will be heated to 50C (120F) and injected into the 900-mile East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), heading for the Tanzanian coast, at a rate of 240,000 barrels a day. Michael Mugerwa, a Ugandan official, says: ‘This oil represents a huge opportunity, it will be decisive for the development of our country. We will be able to achieve energy independence, increase the export capacity of our agriculture and use the trade surplus to strengthen our currency. Our GDP could increase by almost 20%’

A map showing the route of the EACOP.

In order to build the pipeline and other infrastructure, tens of thousands of Ugandans had to be moved off their land. They are known as ‘project-affected people’, or ‘PAPs’ in TotalEnergies jargon. Most are subsistence farmers. On the shores of Lake Albert, nearly 31,000 people had to abandon their land. In this part of Africa, land ownership is often the only bulwark against poverty

In many villages, expropriation – carried out by TotalEnergies’ subcontractors – is causing human tragedy. Many farmers have been barred from working their land, even though they have not yet received compensation. This situation is illegal under Ugandan law and worsened by substantial payment delays. Robert Birimuye, a farmer in south-eastern Uganda whose land lies on the route of EACOP, says: ‘I don’t dare to work my land any more, so I’ve been doing odd jobs in the village. But I only earn a quarter of what I used to. My six children no longer go to school, we don’t have enough to eat’

Will Uganda escape the oil curse? Studies show that the presence of oil in a country slows down development. According to figures published by Friends of the Earth France, the land taken for the project was depended on by nearly 62,000 people, while compensation cases have been pending for up to four years. Lacking a safety net, many are sinking deeper into poverty

Even when the money does arrive, delays have often had irreversible consequences. Richard Okumu, a farmer, says: ‘They took four years to compensate me, during which time I no longer had access to my land. To survive, I had to borrow money. But because my land was seized, banks would not accept my land title as collateral. As a result, I had to resort to crooked lenders, who charged crazy rates. A quarter of my compensation went to interest payments’

Many people also accuse TotalEnergies and its subcontractors of having undervalued their belongings. Moise Omirambe, a farmer in the Lake Albert region, says: ‘A drone flew over us one morning, then men came to plant sticks marking the pipeline route on our land. We were asked to record all the crops and trees on the plot. But when we arrived, the amount of crops stated on the official papers was not correct. A large part of my trees was missing, so my compensation was largely insufficient. I complained to no avail. I am not powerful enough to oppose such a company’

Even cemeteries are having to make way for EACOP. The family burial land of Robert Lule, 43, lies in the path of the pipeline. There, amid banana plants, 62 of his ancestors are buried. But TotalEnergies agreed to move only the graves that had been built in stone – about half of the total. The rest are in danger of being swept away by the construction work. ‘We also demand to be able to move the graves ourselves, in accordance with our culture. But even that has been refused,’ Lule says

Some locals have refused to sell their land. They have systematically been sued by the Ugandan government. Dorothy Mbabazi, a 47-year-old farmer, is one of them. ‘In 2017, on behalf of TotalEnergies, people came to tell me they were going to take my piece of land,’ she says. ‘I refused, because the amount offered in exchange would not have allowed me to buy an equivalent plot in the vicinity. I had to leave my land anyway, and then the state had my compensation frozen by the court. I will only have access to it if I accept the amount that was offered by TotalEnergies five years ago’

Some farmers are coming together to resist the expropriations but they are not fighting on equal terms with TotalEnergies and the Ugandan government. For Joss Kahero, who founded a small association of farmers, the main challenge is the low level of education. ‘Most people here have never been to school. They are offered a seemingly huge sum of money and they sign without understanding that they are losing out,’ he says. As he talks, he rummages through termite-ridden court records contained in a simple canvas bag

For a time, Ugandan civil society fought back but the authorities eventually tightened the screws. The army now roams everywhere across the oil-producing region; journalists are persecuted and human rights activists hindered in their work. Dickens Kamugisha, the chief executive of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance, a small NGO at the forefront of the fight against EACOP, says: ‘The government passed a law in 2016 designed to hinder the activity of NGOs. The aim is to muzzle civil society’

Maxwell Atuhura is one of the human rights activists to have been arrested over EACOP. ‘The more I informed people, the more I was being watched,’ he says. ‘It started with tailing, then negative blurb about me on the local radio, and finally an arrest in May 2021. I spent two nights in jail. The police confiscated all my equipment and threatened me, telling me that I was risking my life to continue my work.’ He finally had to flee the oil-producing region, where he originally comes from

Henry Mugaka, special adviser to the Ugandan president, visits an oilfield operated by CNOOC to observe the progress of the construction work and the land acquisition programme. ‘The 800 inhabitants have all been rehoused, compensated and trained in new jobs when they want them,’ a Chinese CNOOC executive says. ‘The only problem is that the rest of the population complains that they are not treated as well as the displaced people.’ Mugaka agrees: ‘The people are satisfied, that’s very good’

Several thousand affected people who opted for resettlement rather than cash compensation have indeed been resettled. The new houses, built of stone, are at first sight an improvement compared to traditional rural housing in Uganda. Along the dusty alleys, however, the misery is rampant. A resident says: ‘We have been given land around here, but it is very far away and not as fertile [as the land we left]. The cattle are dying. This does not correspond to our type of agriculture’

Grace Gipatho, a 37-year-old farmer, has been relocated to these new, soulless settlements. She too feels she has lost control of her life. ‘Before, I was independent. I had my own plot of land, my own fruit trees,’ she says. ‘I was not rich, but I could support my family. We were relocated, but not everyone was able to get a new plot of land. [We] were supposed to be trained in new trades, but the training was very superficial. As a result, many of us are now unemployed’

In addition to the unfolding humanitarian drama is the threat of an environmental disaster. Much of Uganda’s oil is located under Lake Albert, which feeds the Nile River. Fishers in the region have already been noticing traces of pollution. According to one group: ‘Pumping operations have not yet begun, but drilling is well under way. And we frequently see small oil slicks forming on the surface of the lake. It is very worrying for the future’

On its way to Tanzania, one-third of EACOP will pass through the Lake Victoria watershed, on which 40 million people depend for their livelihood. ‘A leak along the pipeline could be a cataclysm,’ says Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, 25, who founded the Ugandan branch of Fridays for Future, the movement launched by the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg. ‘Once consumed, the oil extracted will also emit nearly 34m tonnes of CO2 a year, six times the emissions of Uganda’

A Nile shoebill, an endangered wading bird, on the shores of Lake Victoria. According to geologists, the subsoil of the East African Rift Valley could hold several tens of billions of additional barrels of oil. Africa, the continent most vulnerable to climate change, is seeing a new environmental and humanitarian crisis metastasise on its eastern flank

TotalEnergies is being sued in France by several NGOs for allegedly failing to comply with the country’s 2017 duty-of-care law. Any French company with more than 10,000 employees is required to identify and prevent human rights and environmental abuses resulting from its own activities or those of its subcontractors. The NGOs are asking the Paris court to suspend TotalEnergies’ Ugandan projects, claiming the company is in breach of this legal obligation