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'We are divided': lake upends life for tiny Kenyan tribe
Three years ago, Kenya's Lake Turkana started rising dramatically, lapping at the El Molo's dome-shaped huts draped in dry fish, then pushing inland, forcing villagers to higher ground.
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In this file photo taken on July 13, 2022 Pupils of El-molo bay primary school take a boat to go to school after the way was submerged by rising water from Lake Turkana, near Loiyangalani, northern Kenya. (AFP/Simon Maina)
A
t first light, children from one of Kenya's smallest and most isolated tribes put on life jackets and board a fishing boat for the journey across the lake to school.
Until recently, they could walk the distance. A road connected the El Molo with the world beyond their tiny village, a lifeline for a secluded community of fishers and craftspeople subsisting on the shores of Lake Turkana.
But three years ago the lake started rising dramatically, lapping at the El Molo's dome-shaped huts draped in dry fish, then pushing inland, forcing villagers to higher ground.
As the tide reached levels not seen in living memory, the El Molo watched their only freshwater pipeline slip beneath the surface, as well as the burial mounds of their ancestors.
Eventually, the road to the mainland disappeared completely, marooning the El Molo on an island in a lake so large and imposing it is sometimes called the "Jade Sea".
"There never used to be water here," said El Molo fisherman Julius Akolong as he crossed the wide channel that today separates his community from the rest of far northern Kenya.
"You could drive a jeep across."
