Migingo Island

Lake Victoria is the world’s second largest freshwater Lake – Lake Superior is the largest – and with a surface area of 68,800 square kilometres, is Africa’s largest. In the lake, about 3 hours by boat from the Kenyan shore and twice the journey from Uganda, there is a little archipelago of three islands, Migingo, Ugingo, which lies 660 feet to the east of Migingo, and Pyramid Island, two kilometres to the south.

Migingo is nothing much to shout about. It is a rock, barely 2,000 metres in size and was barely inhabited. No one really cared about it or paid it much attention, least of all as to who actually owned it. But that all changed in 2002. Aerial photographs from the time show a mass of shanty buildings, nestling cheek by jowl on the rock and a population, at its peak, of around 500. Ownership now became an issue and sparked a bitter dispute between the Kenyans and Ugandans.

Why the change?

Well, it is all to do with a fish, known locally as mbuta aka Nile perch. It grows to around 2 metres in size and can weigh upwards of 200 kg. It is not a native to lake Victoria, it was thought to have been introduced in the 1950s, possibly by the Ugandans, and it has had a devastating effect on the local environment as it is a voracious predator, devouring all before it. But it is also very tasty itself and is much sought after by restaurants in Europe and elsewhere. Local fishermen who land a mbuta can earn far more than they can from their normal catch.

When news broke in 2002 that Migingo was an ideal spot to catch mbuta, it caused a stampede in much the same way as news of a gold find did back in the 19^th century. Fishermen built lean-tos on any space on the island they could find and fished the bejeebers out of the lake. Those who were successful earned sums beyond their wildest dreams. Migingo made a belated appearance on the radar screens of the Kenyan and Ugandan governments and a dispute broke out over who actually owned the rock.

The majority of the fishermen who crowded on to rock were Kenyan and it always had been assumed by anyone who paid the island any attention that it belonged to Kenya. But the Ugandans, now that there was some lucrative revenue to be derived from the island, begged to differ and despatched a squad of police to erect and fly their flag. The Kenyans in response despatched their police to tear the offending flag down and install their own. But when they got to the island, they encountered 60 Ugandan marines spoiling for a fight. Fortunately, wise heads prevailed and a sort of solution to the issue was agreed.

Under the legal concept of Uti possidetis, countries emerging from colonial rule retain the territory they held upon gaining independence. We have seen elsewhere how this causes problems when the colonial masters, as the Brits were when they turned their finely tuned minds to the Kenya-Uganda border in 1926. After all, who cared about a few small rocks in the middle of a lake? The mbuta were also oblivious of the niceties of international boundaries. They bred in the shallow Kenyan littoral waters and migrated to the deeper waters around Migingo.

Even before the settlement, Kenya owned just 6% of the lake but dominated the mbuta trade, whilst Uganda, which owned 43%, were minnows in comparison. The resolution to the dispute reflected economic power – Kenya gained ownership of the rock but Uganda has claim to the surrounding waters. This still means that Kenyan fishers need permission to fish in Ugandan waters.

Borders are tricky things but I’m not sure the fish care.