Migingo Island: a rocky marriage between Uganda and Kenya
MIGINGO: A rounded rocky outcrop covered with metallic shacks, Migingo Island rises out of the waters of Lake Victoria like an iron-plated turtle.
The densely populated island is barely a quarter of a hectare large, its residents crammed into a hodgepodge of corrugated-iron homes. There’s little else but a few bars, brothels and a tiny port.
Nevertheless for over a decade Migingo has been a source of tension between Uganda and Kenya, who have been unable to decide to whom it really belongs. They were once pushed to the brink of what some said would have been Africa’s “smallest war” over the island.
While fishing communities around Lake Victoria have seen their catches slowly diminish over the years, the deep waters surrounding Migingo abound with catch such as Nile Perch.
Isaac Buhinza, 22, of Uganda learned fishing from his father and never went to school, and said he was drawn to Migingo because “my friends who were here before used to come back home with lots of goodies” from their fishing bounty.
“I do not know which country this
For over a decade Migingo has been a source of tension between Uganda and Kenya, who have been unable to decide to whom it really belongs
(island) belongs to, I just stay here.” For fisherman like Buhinza, living directly on the tiny island saves them fuel and also gives them direct access to wholesale buyers.
It was in the early 2000s when the island was barely inhabited — then situated within Kenya on all maps — that it began drawing the attention of Ugandan authorities who sent officials to Migingo to tax fishermen and offer protection against pirates.
Kenyan fishermen in return began complaining they were being shaken down by the Ugandans in their own waters and chased from the island. They called on Kenya’s government which deployed security forces to Migingo in a move that nearly brought the two nations to blows in 2009. Kenya and Uganda then decided create a joint commission to to determine where the watery border is, relying on maps dating from the 1920s whose interpretation is a key point of contention.
But nothing has come of the commission, and in the absence of any decisions on the boundary, the island is co-managed by both countries, a marriage of convenience that has seen highs and lows.
Whether gutting fish on the rocks of the island, frying them up in greasy cafes, or stringing them up to dry on wires between rusty metal shacks, Migingo’s residents generally just go about their own business.