Migingo is a tiny 2,000-square-metre island, about half the size of a football pitch, in Lake Victoria. Two Kenyan fishermen, Dalmas Tembo and George Kibebe, claim to have been the first inhabitants on the island. When they settled there in 1991, it was covered with weeds and infested with birds and snakes. Joseph Nsubuga, a Ugandan fisherman, says he settled on Migingo in 2004, when all he found on the island was an abandoned house. Subsequently, other fishermen — from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania — came to the island because of its proximity to fishing grounds rich with Nile perch. An unusual claim in 2009 by some Kenyan fishermen was that since none of the Nile perch breed in Uganda (the nearest Ugandan land and nearest Ugandan freshwater is 85 kilometres away), then the fish somehow "belonged to Kenyans". The island has a population of about 131 (according to 2009 census), mostly fishermen and fish traders, who are served by four pubs, a number of brothels, and a pharmacy on the island. A rocky and rugged piece of land with little vegetation, Migingo is one of three small islands in close proximity. The much larger Usingo Island is 200 metres to the east of the small white rectangle that is Migingo, and Pyramid Island, the largest of the three, is 2 kilometres due south of Migingo and 11 kilometres north of the Tanzanian border in Lake Victoria.
Mingingo Island, Lake Victoria
