In East Africa, in a nook at the northern tip of Kenya between South Sudan and Uganda, there lies a disputed region called the Ilemi Triangle. South Sudan and Kenya both claim it, but so do the people who have always called this land home. They include the Turkana, a small, traditionally nomadic group of herders.
But a decades-long drought has forced the Turkana away from their original source of survival. Without rain there was no grass; without grass for grazing, many of the Turkana's herds withered away. So they set their sights on the fertile lake that gives them their name, Lake Turkana, the largest desert lake in the world.
But the Turkana weren't the only community to tap into this new source of food. Their long-time rivals in the southwest of Ethiopia, the Dhaasanac, also found their livestock depleted and turned to fishing instead. Meanwhile, nearby regional conflicts have flooded the disputed land with modern weaponry. Now, young boys and men have traded their spears for automatic guns. With tensions high, survival at a premium, and arms at the ready, clashes have gone from violent to deadly.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"Before, they used (to) fight with spears and other rudimental weapons," Pius Chuchu, a Turkana leader, told Reuters. "Then came the single bullet carbines. Now, everyone has these modern guns such as AK-47s that even young boys can carry and use."
It's made a hard life that much harder; many fishermen set sail each day with a gun in the boat, to protect themselves from possible attacks. Yet in the pauses between violence, the quenching between droughts, life carries on.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.