The context is still tense between the village communities and the Australian mining company Base Toliara, based in the south-west of Madagascar. In a statement released Monday, May 6, two Malagasy land defense civil society organizations called for the release of nine villagers accused of damaging company facilities. Part of the local population vigorously contests this mining project.

"Repression and violations of the rights of communities over their lands and natural resources", this is how two civil society organizations - the CRAAD OI and the TANY collective - describe the arrests carried out last week.

The standoff between the village communities impacted by the project and the mining company has been going on for months.

The population, made up mostly of farmers, breeders and fishermen, denounces the harmful impacts of ilmenite extraction on health and the environment and therefore on their livelihoods. Others refuse to hand over their land to the company.

It is in this tense context that, on April 17, the latter held a demonstration to demand that the mining project be stopped. The demonstration degenerated. Small wooden houses were burned at the company's site in Ranobe.

“Thirty people were arrested on May 2, nine are still being held in an unknown location,” reports civil society. Contacted, the national gendarmerie indicates that the nine villagers are in police custody in the locality of Sakaraha, accused of "willful destruction and blockade on the national road". A joint investigation by gendarmes and police is underway.

"The only person who claims acts of vandalism against the Base Toliara project has not been arrested, although we have seen him at work", replies the civil society which demands the immediate release of the villagers. , the respect of their right to fair and impartial justice, the end of all repression against the demonstrators who support them and the satisfaction of their claim.

Five municipalities in the Tulear region, in the south-west of the country, are affected by this project, which covers 2,500 hectares.

"The current legislation provides that the occupants have property rights over the land they have been cultivating for several decades in the case of the communities concerned by the Base Toliara project, even if they do not have formal land ownership documents. “, specifies the press release of the civil society.