As a scorching wind tears across the barren, rocky slopes of Komote Island off the shore of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, Alfred Lenkutuk sits in the meager shelter of his hut, gazing out over the village where he was born and remembering better times.
As little as 10 years ago, the village wasn't on an island at all. But the lake has steadily expanded, swallowing homes, grazing lands, schools, roads and the burial grounds where Lenkutuk's ancestors were laid to rest. Today, the village is separated from the mainland by about 660 yards of shimmering turquoise water where fishermen paddle on homemade rafts.
Growing up, the 71-year-old remembers going on regular communal hippo hunts around the lakeshore, and fishermen coming home with catches of more than 250 pounds. Now the hippos are virtually wiped out and fishermen are lucky if they come home with even 10 pounds of fish. Families have been divided by the rising waters. Children must take a boat to get to school every morning. Anyone with livestock has been forced to leave.
"Now we depend on the government," says Lenkutuk, a member of the El Molo people, one of Africa's smallest and most marginalized indigenous groups, whose lives have revolved around the lake for centuries. "We're not able to support ourselves."
The government sends supplies of rice and beans every few months, and recently provided the island with a reverse osmosis plant to give them access to fresh water. Lenkutuk says it's not nearly enough.
Lake Turkana is the world's largest permanent desert lake, and its waters have long sustained hundreds of thousands of people in one of the most isolated and neglected parts of Kenya. But now the lake is facing multiple, concurrent threats. Rising water levels -- attributed to a combination of climatic and tectonic factors -- have displaced thousands, damaged infrastructure and services, and disrupted fishing. At the same time, persistent drought across northern Kenya has forced thousands of herders to take up fishing, putting even greater pressure on an already delicate ecosystem and fueling intense competition.
"We used to be able to fish all the way from here to Moitie," says Lenkutuk, referring to a town about 44 miles northwest. "There are too many people fishing now."
In 2018, Lake Turkana was placed on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger. Since then, residents say, conditions have only deteriorated. In Kalokol, a major fishing community on the lake's western shore, many have now been displaced three times as the waters continue to encroach. Teenagers bathe in the floodwaters, and fishermen string their nets between submerged bushes amid the remains of flooded villages.
A few miles to the south, a lodge that was once a mainstay of Turkana's fledgling tourist industry has lost 95% of its land. Nearly all of its staff have been laid off. Its conference center, once popular with NGOs, has vanished beneath the water, and a flooded palm forest in front of the hastily rebuilt guest cottages has become a playground for children.
But of all the groups affected by the changes, the El Molo, who now number barely a few hundred people, have perhaps the most to lose. An El Molo origin myth holds that their people and the lake were created together, and neither has ever existed without the other. For them, the lake is not only a source of livelihood but also a cornerstone of cultural identity.
As the sun rises over Komote island, around two dozen children clad in apple-green uniforms make their way to board a boat that will take them to school on the mainland. They sit crammed tightly together, some hastily finishing the last bites of their breakfast. The 20-minute or so journey costs cash-strapped El Molo families 100 Kenyan shillings (about 75 cents) per child each way. As the boat pulls in, the children clamber over the side, wading through the shallows past abandoned, submerged school buildings.
"We lost two of the girls' dormitories, the dining hall, the library, the early childhood development center, the sports field, the teachers' quarters," says John Wambisa, a geography teacher at the school who began working here in 2005. "They're all underwater."
The new teachers' quarters, he says, are infested with bats whose droppings have triggered a wave of respiratory problems. Flooded school buildings have become breeding grounds for crocodiles, and when the weather is rough or the boat has run out of fuel, half his students don't make it to class, fearing the waters and the crocs. The primary school also lost its fresh water after it was contaminated with lake water. In just a few years, student enrollment has dropped from over 230 to just 139.
"It's affected us a lot," says Wambisa, as he heads off to teach his first class of the day. "We're trying to adjust to climate change."
Lake Turkana's waters -- like those of the other lakes in Kenya's volcanic Great Rift Valley, which cuts north-south through the center of the country -- have always fluctuated as a result of tectonic shifts underground. But researchers say the current rapid rise, which began around 2018, has been exacerbated by climatic and other human-induced factors.
"It's a complex web of interactions that created this situation," says Kevin Obiero of the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), who has been studying the lake since 2012.
Alongside the tectonic activity, Obiero says changing weather patterns in southwestern Ethiopia are likely a significant factor, increasing inflow into the lake through the Omo river, its major tributary. He adds that a buildup of sediment -- driven by changing land-use patterns, increased erosion and disruption to rivers that feed the lake -- could be making things worse.
Obiero says the decline in fishermen's catches may also be more complicated than it seems. Gauging overall trends in fish stocks is difficult because historical data is limited, he says, but recent surveys by the KMFRI and its partners suggest that the lake still holds enough fish to sustain a thriving fishing industry. The problem, he says, is that most of the best fishing grounds lie beyond the reach of the subsistence fishers living along the lakeshore.
"Over half of the vessels are rafts made of doum palms," says Obiero. "Only 12% of all the vessels are motorized. Fishers don't have the capacity to reach the deeper parts of the lake, so everyone's fishing in the same areas."
Around the lake, the declining catches and rising waters have played out in different ways. In the northern reaches, thousands of pastoralist herders have switched to fishing after losing their livestock to drought since 2021. Fishermen say increasing competition has spurred a sharp rise in armed conflict, especially between fisherfolk from the Turkana and Dassanech ethnic groups. In a single incident in February 2025, more than 20 people were killed when rival groups clashed near the Ethiopian border.
In January, 24-year-old Nyabonte Kuras was fishing on the lake when he heard engines approaching. Seconds later, he heard automatic gunfire. His cousin, standing next to him on the boat, was fatally shot in the chest. Another friend, whom Kuras had known since childhood, was hit in the leg, before leaping overboard to escape the hail of bullets. The attackers finished him off in the water. A third crew member was hit in the arm. Kuras and the only other uninjured man in the boat fled the scene while returning fire with an AK-47.
"I'm not the only one -- most of us have experienced these things," says Kuras, a Dassanech father of two who has been fishing on the lake since he was a child. "When I was young there were few fishermen and there was no shooting. When the number of fishermen increased, that's what brought this conflict."
Kuras says he feels trapped. In his village of just 30 homes, six people have now been killed by rivals on the lake in the past few years. To avoid the risk of attack, he no longer ventures far from land. Yet he says he's finding it increasingly hard to catch enough to make ends meet in the heavily fished waters near the shore.
"I'm always thinking, if I catch nothing, what will I give my family?" says Kuras.
Armed attack is not his only concern. Alongside those shot on the lake, five others from his village have been killed by crocodiles, he says. Kuras believes the crocodiles are attacking people more often because their primary food source –- fish –- is dwindling. The Turkana County government, however, says the apparent increase in attacks is a result of the rising lake levels, which have created huge expanses of flooded scrubland that are now hunting grounds for both people and crocodiles, frequently bringing the two into conflict.
Ng'ikalei Loito, 33, was bathing in just such an area in when she was attacked by a crocodile. She clung to a nearby tree and shouted for help. By the time rescuers arrived, her legs were so badly damaged that doctors had no choice but to amputate them.
Loito's experience illustrates the devastating impact of the region's colliding crises. At the time of the attack, her family was already under enormous strain, having been displaced multiple times from their home near Kalokol by the rising waters.
To pay for her medical bills, the family had to sell most of their remaining cattle and goats, a bitter blow after years of drought had already decimated local herds. And in the same year she lost her legs, her husband was killed in a cattle raid, a practice fueled by drought and the growing competition over livestock and grazing land.
"There's no work I can do," says Loito, who, before her accident, supported her five children with the small income she earned selling tea and donuts. "I'm just sitting around at home."
For Obiero, the fisheries researcher, there's no simple solution to the lake's complex challenges. Rather, what it needs, he says, is a coordinated set of social and ecological interventions.
Fishermen must be supported and trained to use new equipment and techniques that would allow them to reach richer fishing grounds, he says. Fishing villages, only 2% of which currently have electricity, must get access to power. Transport must be improved so fishermen have a cost-effective way to export their catch. Cold-storage and processing facilities should be installed around the lake. Cell phone coverage should be expanded so fishermen can communicate with buyers and call for help when needed. And access to health care and drinking water should be improved.
"We need to come up with innovative solutions to all these problems," says Obiero. "But we still believe the lake can be the backbone of these communities."
Some innovations are underway. The Kenyan government's Lake Turkana Fisheries Management Plan has imposed regulations designed to protect juvenile fish and make certain breeding grounds off limits to fishing. It is also monitoring water quality and carrying out a baseline fish biomass survey. Both the government and nongovernmental organizations are involved in a series of peace-building initiatives to reduce conflict in the north of the lake.
Other NGO-led initiatives, including a major project by UNESCO and the World Food Programme, are working to expand and improve market access for fishers. Some cold-storage facilities have been installed, and some fishing equipment has been provided. The UNESCO/WFP project is also using microfinance, with loans and banking services, to boost alternative livelihoods and help fishing communities diversify their sources of income.
But the broader impact of these interventions has so far been limited. On Komote Island, the El Molo's problems show little sign of abating. Aside from the water plant and meager food deliveries provided by the government, and three fishing boats donated by various NGOs, Lenkutuk says the community has received little assistance.
Mostly, he places his hopes in divine intervention. As the light starts to fade, he lights a small fire on the shore, letting its acrid smoke drift across his beleaguered island in a ritual that he hopes will bring better fortunes for his people. He calls on God to send fish and rain, and asks that his people not be forgotten.
"We'll go on until there are no fish left," says Lenkutuk. "When there's nothing left, we fear how we'll be able to survive."
Tommy Trenchard is an independent photojournalist based in Cape Town, South Africa. He has previously contributed photos and stories to NPR on the Mozambique cyclone of 2019, Indonesian death rituals and illegal miners in abandoned South African diamond mines and won a World Press Photo prize for the images in his story for NPR on clashes between elephants and people in Zambia.
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