Countries on Lake Victoria committed to fighting crime and improving community relations

Officials from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are meeting for the fourth time in less than two years to find ways to more effectively combat cross-border crimes around Lake Victoria.

Some of the crimes are related to nature, such as illegal fishing, felling trees and charcoal production. In other cases, criminals take advantage of porous borders to sell drugs and engage in human trafficking. In 2021, the police organization Interpol rescued 121 people being trafficked in and around Lake Victoria.

Speaking to reporters in the port city of Mombasa, Raymond Omollo, principal secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Home Affairs, said the parties want to close gaps in policing and surveillance, while strengthening social and economic relations among communities in the lake area improve.

“So we’re looking at how we can better coordinate, how we can build capacities, how we can have a common understanding with the communities around the lake and also who benefits from using the lake about how we can better manage those resources and at the same time ( time) trying to minimize and eradicate a crime that we know is prevalent 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 participants that keeping Lake Victoria safe is important to his country.

“Lake Victoria is Uganda’s ocean, so we are looking forward to working together, especially to learn about the good practices you have on the coast,” Bwesigye said.

Authorities have documented illegal fishing in the lake, driven by rising demand for Nile perch, charcoal harvesting and timber smuggling.

IOM Kenya Chief of Mission Sharon Dimanche said authorities must work with communities to combat organized crime in the region.

“If the border communities are not informed, if they really don’t know what we should be focusing on, then it becomes a bit of a challenge to fight these transnational organized crimes because they are there and they know what is happening and they We know some strange faces that come into their community. So it is important that we connect them, they have a good relationship with law enforcement agencies,” Dimanche said.

The meeting in Mombasa ends on Wednesday.