Officials from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are meeting for the fourth time in less than two years to find ways to more effectively fight transnational crimes around the Lake Victoria area.
Some of the crimes are nature-related, such as illegal fishing, tree cutting and charcoal production. In other cases, criminals take advantage of porous borders to sell drugs and conduct human trafficking. In 2021, the police organization Interpol rescued 121 people trafficked in and around Lake Victoria.
Speaking to reporters at the port city of Mombasa, Kenya’s interior ministry principal secretary, Raymond Omollo, said the parties were looking to close gaps in policing and surveillance, while also improving social and economic relations of communities living in the lake region.
“So we are looking at how to coordinate better, how to build capacities, how to have a common understanding with the communities around the lake and also who benefits from the use of the lake on how to manage those resources better while at the same [time] trying to minimize, eradicate a crime that we know is common in the lake,” Omollo said.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched the Lake Victoria project in December 2022.
The world’s second-largest freshwater lake covers 60,000 square kilometers and is a source of livelihood for at least 40 million people in East Africa.
Uganda’s assistant commissioner for migration, Marcellino Bwesigye, told conference attendees that keeping Lake Victoria safe is important for his country.
“Lake Victoria is Uganda’s ocean. So, we are looking forward to working together, especially to learn about the good practices that you have from the coast,” Bwesigye said.
Authorities have documented illegal fishing in the lake, driven by rising demand for Nile perch, as well as charcoal harvesting and timber smuggling.
Sharon Dimanche, IOM Kenya’s chief of mission, said authorities need to partner with communities to fight organized crime in the region.
“If the border communities are not informed, if they really don’t know what … we need to focus on, then it becomes a bit challenging to combat any of these transnational organized crimes because they are there and they know what is happening and they know some strange faces that are coming in their communities. So it’s important that we link them up, they have a good relationship with law enforcement agencies,” Dimanche said.
The meeting in Mombasa ends Wednesday.
