Africa News
Ugandan police up security after ethnic attacks in oil region
Aug 13, 2009, 13:00 GMT
Kampala - Ugandan police have deployed heavily in a district in Uganda's oil-rich north-western region after arson attacks against tribal immigrants, a senior police official said Thursday.
'Immigrants are being targeted and there have been several cases of arson against them,' police spokesman Judith Nabakooba told the German Press Agency dpa.
Nabakooba said that the situation was now calm in Buliisa district, but that an unspecified number of people were injured in the attacks by the local Banyoro tribesmen targeting nomadic pastoralists and the ethnic Bakiga.
Commercial oil reserves were first confirmed in the region in 2006 and according to current estimates, Uganda has reserves of about 3.5 million barrels.
Energy ministry officials believe the figure is much, much higher considering that there are strings of other wells in districts further north.
Commercial production capacity is expected to hit several hundred thousand barrels per day, although President Yoweri Museveni said last year that initial production would begin in 2009 with 6,000 barrels per day, rising to 10,000.
Experts fear that the ethnic tensions caused by the local tribes demanding a greater share of the oil wealth might disrupt the oil exploration programs and production.
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