Report: From Kingfisher to the Lakes: How Human Rights Violations in EACOP Hotspot Underscore Larger Trends of Abuse in the AfDB-funded LEAF II Project in Northwestern Uganda
"From Kingfisher to the Lakes: How Human Rights Violations in EACOP Hotspot Underscore Larger Trends of Abuse in the AfDB-funded LEAF II Project in Northwestern Uganda" Just Finance International, 5 May 2025
It’s been just over seven years since Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni proudly laid the foundation stone for the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in 2017, a project backed by major international financiers and oil companies to create the largest heated crude oil pipeline in the world.
However, in Kingfisher—an isolated area along Lake Albert where the oil is already being drilled by the project’s second largest shareholder, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)—the operation has been linked to allegations of widespread human rights abuses against project affected persons (PAPs). These include [...] cases of excessive use of force by state security forces, namely the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) and their Fisheries protection unit (UPDF-FPU).
Moreover, these alleged abuses are not unique to the Kingfisher development area. They reflect a broader pattern of human rights violations in Uganda’s Albertine Graben region. A similar trend was observed in another large-scale development project, the African Development Bank’s (AfBD) LEAF II project, [...].
According to community testimony collected by JFI, seven of the 13 villages were either entirely vacated or partially occupied by state security forces between 2021 and mid-2024. Residents describe a pattern of coercion, harassment, and intimidation by state actors, often leaving them with no choice but to abandon their homes and livelihoods.
A closer analysis of testimonies from various PAPs living in the villages hardest hit by the increased UPDF presence paints a very different picture to the oil companies’ narrative of community development.
Financial institutions are integral to the implementation of [...] EACOP. This funding typically reaches the project through two primary routes: direct project finance such as loans and insurance, or indirectly via the project’s corporate owners – TotalEnergies (62%), Uganda’s National Oil Company (15%), Tanzania’s TPDC (15%), and China’s CNOOC (8%).
EACOP is now estimated to require a $5 billion investment before it is operational. Originally, this was expected to consist of 60% debt and 40% equity; however, concerns over reputation risk pushed many financial institutions to adopt exclusion policies restricting direct financing and insurance.
[...] appears unlikely to reverse the project’s growing dependence on shareholder capital.
[...] TotalEnergies (like the AfDB) [...] is going hand in hand with human rights and environmental abuses linked to the project. Its reliance on compromised national redress mechanisms, [...] is insufficient and ineffective. The LEAF II project serves as an example of how these same mechanisms failed to provide meaningful remedies for the extensive harm caused.
TotalEnergies and CNOOC, along with their European investors, must be held accountable for the devastating impact of their projects on local communities and requires:
- An independent investigation [...] must be taken to address the myriad human rights violations alleged within the Kingfisher development project area with realistic remedies [...].
- International investors and shareholders to hold EACOP companies accountable to stricter human rights due diligence and ensure compensation and support for affected communities already affected as a strict prerequisite for continued investment.