Located in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region on the west bank of the Omo River, Omo National Park is one of the National Parks of Ethiopia.
Omo National Park covers roughly 4,068 square kilometers. Although an airstrip was recently built near the park headquarters on the Mui River, this park is not easily accessible. Omo National Park is Ethiopia’s most remote park.
The lower reaches of the Omo River were acknowledged a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1980, after the discovery of the earliest known fossil fragments of Homo Sapiens that have been dated circa 195,000 years old.
The Suri, Mursi, Nyangatom, Dizi and Me’en are reported in risk of displacement and/or denial of right of entry to their traditional grazing and agricultural land.
This follows the delineation of the Park boundaries in November, 2005, and the recent management takeover of the Park by the Dutch African Parks Foundation. This process threatens to make the Omo people ‘illegal squatters’ on their own land.
There are information that these tribal peoples have been forced into signing documents they could not read by Park officials.