Kingfisher Oil Field: Community Groups Report Forced Evictions and Military Presence

The Kingfisher Development Area, an onshore oilfield on the eastern shore of Lake Albert operated by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), is a central plank of Uganda's ambition to become a mid-tier oil producer. It is also, according to residents of Kikuube District and the rights organisations working with them, a place where the ordinary rules of consent and due process have been strained.

The allegations

In March 2024, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre published an alert compiled by Just Finance International summarising community allegations of mass arrests and forced evictions, assaults and sexual violence attributed to security forces deployed around the project. In December 2024, Radio Free Asia linked the Chinese-backed project to a wider pattern of forced evictions, suppression of civil society and environmental damage documented by rights groups.

Local outlets have carried the same account from a different vantage point. Rise News Uganda, reporting in October 2024, pressed the question that residents keep asking: whether the Kingfisher project is bad for people, climate and the environment - and who exactly is meant to be answering.

What CNOOC and the government say

CNOOC has consistently denied wrongdoing and points to its community investment programmes in Buhuka parish. The Petroleum Authority of Uganda has said grievance mechanisms are in place and that first oil remains on track. Rights groups counter that a functioning grievance mechanism should not need to be pointed out; residents should already know it works.

As Uganda approaches first oil, the Kingfisher story is the country's most important test of whether the promises made to host communities in the environmental and social impact assessments can survive contact with a large, fast-moving industrial project.