Dodoma – At least five people have been reported killed in a September farmer-livestock keeper violence cluster and a separate October attack in Tunduru District, raising fresh questions about security, land governance and the government’s response in Ruvuma.
At a meeting with Ruvuma MPs on October 26, Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba condemned deliberate grazing on another person’s farm as well as retaliation by groups, and instructed security agencies to act.
“A person has a farm here, you have livestock, and you go and graze your livestock on your neighbour’s farm. The government does not allow this,” he said during the meeting that included MPs as well as other senior government officials.
Nchemba said farmers and livestock keepers should not treat one another as enemies, even as demand for land rises. He said a multi-ministry exercise involving land, local-government, livestock, agriculture, water, security and legal authorities was continuing, and promised to visit Tunduru after the parliamentary sitting.
The government had already acknowledged the broader risk before the current episodes. In a Parliament exchange on August 27, Nchemba said rising human and livestock populations, fixed land and climate pressures were increasing the potential for conflict, and said compliance with land-use plans was an immediate priority.
Yet an important part of the official account remains unavailable. At the meeting, Minister of State Palamagamba Kabudi said officials had discussed a report brought by the Livestock Minister, while Nchemba said the work was still being finalised and that a report would be issued once complete.
Neither document was presented or published, and no final fact-finding report on the September and October incidents was located on government platforms reviewed by The Chanzo.
The first documented 2026 cluster began on September 17, according to a police account reported by Mwananchi newspaper. Ruvuma police commander ACP Marco Chilya said three people, one livestock keeper and two farmers, were killed in violence around Mrusha, Chinunje and Chikomo villages, and that 25 suspects had been arrested.
Chilya’s account alleged that a dispute began after 180 cattle were said to have been taken, and that a missing livestock keeper was later found dead before retaliatory attacks and unrest followed.
A separate episode on October 16 killed Misechele Ward councillor Zuberi Abasi Binamu and businessman Omari Zuberi Yassini at a funeral in Mkambala Hamlet, Chiungo Village. Police said three people were injured and 15 suspects arrested, after an alleged chain of violence that included a farmer being speared and an attack on livestock keepers’ camps.
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Together, those police-attributed accounts document at least five deaths in distinct 2026 events. A CCM regional chairperson separately said seven people had died, and 37 had been injured, but that was a party claim that police have not publicly reconciled with the incident-level record.
The district has seen fatal conflict before. A Livestock Ministry notice issued in March said eight people had been killed in a separate Tunduru incident at the end of September 2025, and called on both groups not to take the law into their own hands.
The problem also extends beyond Ruvuma. Before the recent Tunduru episodes, official police statistics recorded 745 farmer-livestock keeper disputes among 1,133 land conflicts nationally between January and June 2026; all land-conflict categories together were associated with 54 deaths and 105 injuries.
Research on Tunduru and southern Tanzania points to structural risks, rather than a proven explanation for these killings. A 2012 study that included Muhuwesi in Tunduru found that unenforced by-laws, unclear land-use boundaries, grazing areas unable to sustain herds throughout the year, and a lack of water and livestock infrastructure could force movements that brought people into dispute.
A later Tunduru case study also identified crop-damage complaints, inadequate compensation, weakly resourced local institutions and poorly implemented land-use plans as reported sources of tension.
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Studies frame the long-term challenge as one of implementation as much as planning: grazing allocations matched to seasonal feed and water needs, clear and respected boundaries, working livestock infrastructure, and credible mediation when crops, animals or people are harmed.
The Ministry said in March it was planning land-use measures and designated grazing areas, while a Tunduru technical meeting on October 19 discussed land management and coordination, but its public notice set out no detailed plan.
