The indigenous people in the Central Highlands are facing immense pain due to the arbitrary land confiscation by the authorities without proper notification. On April 3, 2023, dozens of police officers entered the garden of residents in Buon Drao village, Ea H'leo district, Đắk Lắk province, to confiscate land without proper legal procedures.
According to Vietnam's Land Law 2013, any land acquisition must follow strict procedures including proper notification, compensation, and resettlement plans. However, in this case, residents were given no advance notice, no opportunity to contest the decision, and no fair compensation.
This incident is not isolated. Across the Central Highlands, indigenous communities continue to lose their ancestral lands to state development projects, often without adequate compensation or alternative housing. The pattern of land confiscation disproportionately affects Montagnard communities, who have lived on these lands for generations.
We demand that the Vietnamese government immediately halt all illegal land confiscations, provide fair compensation to affected families, and respect the land rights of indigenous communities as guaranteed by both Vietnamese law and international human rights standards.
