Rising waters in Lake Turkana, the world’s largest permanent desert lake, have swallowed villages, grazing lands, and infrastructure across northern Kenya, forcing thousands of residents from their ancestral homes. The expanding shoreline has cut off the El Molo indigenous community from the mainland, submerged local schools and burial grounds, and triggered a cascade of resource conflicts that threaten one of Africa’s smallest and most historically marginalized groups.
“Now we depend on the government,” said Alfred Lenkutuk, a 71-year-old El Molo resident of what is now Komote Island. “We’re not able to support ourselves.” Lenkutuk, whose village remained connected to the mainland just a decade ago, now watches fishermen paddle across 660 yards of turquoise water on homemade rafts. Hippos that once populated the lakeshore are virtually gone, and daily fish catches have plummeted from as high as 250 pounds to roughly 10 pounds per fisherman.
The crisis is driven by a convergence of geological, climatic, and human factors. Kevin Obiero, a researcher at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute who has studied Lake Turkana since 2012, said changing weather patterns in southwestern Ethiopia are likely increasing inflow through the Omo River. Obiero added that sediment buildup, driven by changing land-use patterns and erosion, is exacerbating the situation alongside ongoing tectonic activity. Researchers say the most recent surge in water levels began around 2018, the same year UNESCO placed the lake on its List of World Heritage in Danger.
The rising water has hit local education infrastructure particularly hard. John Wambisa, a geography teacher who began working at El Molo Bay in 2005, said the school has lost two girls’ dormitories, a dining hall, a library, an early childhood development center, and a sports field to the encroaching water. Student enrollment has dropped from over 230 to 139. Families must pay 100 Kenyan shillings (about 75 cents) per child for each boat crossing, a steep daily cost for households already living below the poverty line. When storms roll in or boats run out of fuel, students are stranded on the island.
Beyond lost classrooms, the submerged landscape has altered the local ecology in dangerous ways. Flooded school buildings and newly expanded scrubland now serve as breeding grounds for crocodiles, while hastily constructed teachers’ quarters are infested with bats whose droppings have triggered respiratory illnesses among staff. Ng’ikalei Loito, a 33-year-old mother of five, lost both legs to a crocodile in August 2025 while bathing near the shore. Rescuers found her clinging to a submerged tree just before doctors were forced to amputate. In the same year, Loito’s husband was killed in a cattle raid, and the family sold off most of their remaining livestock to cover her medical bills.
The ecological strain is intensifying armed conflict across the lake. As droughts since 2021 decimated regional herds, thousands of pastoralists from the Turkana and Dassanech ethnic groups switched to fishing to survive, dramatically increasing pressure on near-shore fishing grounds. Nyabonte Kuras, a 24-year-old Dassanech fisherman, said he was attacked by armed rivals in January. Gunfire killed his cousin and two friends during the incident. Kuras now stays close to shore, but dwindling near-shore catches leave his family at risk of starvation. “I’m always thinking, if I catch nothing, what will I give my family?” Kuras said.
Turkana County officials attribute the spike in human-crocodile encounters to the expanding habitat created by floodwaters, while researchers note that declining fish stocks may be driving the reptiles closer to human settlements. Obiero emphasized that historical data on fish stocks is limited, and the lake may still hold enough biomass to sustain the industry if fishers can access deeper waters. Today, more than half of all vessels are makeshift rafts woven from doum palm trunks, leaving subsistence fishers unable to reach richer grounds.
Coordinated social and ecological interventions are underway, though their impact remains uneven across the region. The Kenyan government’s Lake Turkana Fisheries Management Plan is monitoring water quality, protecting juvenile fish, and restricting access to critical breeding grounds. UNESCO and the World Food Programme have launched initiatives to install cold-storage facilities, provide microfinance loans, and expand market access. Peace-building efforts along the Ethiopian border are also underway to reduce armed clashes between rival fishing groups.
For the El Molo, however, these broader programs have yet to translate into meaningful relief. Aside from quarterly deliveries of rice and beans, a newly installed reverse-osmosis fresh water plant, and three donated fishing boats, Lenkutuk said the community has received little direct support. As evening settles over Komote Island, Lenkutuk lights a small fire in a traditional ritual, asking for fish, rain, and divine intervention. “We’ll go on until there are no fish left,” Lenkutuk said. “When there’s nothing left, we fear how we’ll be able to survive.”