Nearly 1,000 East Africans drown in Lake Victoria each year, Karugu says

East African Community Affairs Principal Secretary Caroline Karugu. [File, Standard]

Nearly 1,000 East Africans drown in Lake Victoria every year, most while engaged in illegal fishing, East African Community Affairs Principal Secretary Caroline Karugu has said.

Karugu said Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania were responding by establishing rescue and communication centres to improve surveillance and emergency response on the lake.

"Statistics have shown us that year on year we are losing close to 1,000 people, 1,000 East Africans on the lake, most of them engaging in illegal fishing," said Karugu.

She said a Maritime Rescue and Communication Centre in Kisumu was nearly complete, with similar facilities being developed in Mwanza, Tanzania, and Entebbe, Uganda.

The three centres will use satellite-based communication systems to monitor activities on the lake and coordinate search and rescue operations across the region.

Karugu said Kenya was also working with the State Department for Maritime Affairs to increase rescue capacity in counties bordering the lake.

"We are in talks with the State Department of Maritime Affairs to ensure that we have rescue boats, enough rescue boats and enough rescue teams within Lake Victoria so that we don't continue to lose the fishermen that we are losing in the lake," noted Karugu.

She said county-level rescue centres would be established in lakeside counties including Homa Bay and Siaya to support emergency operations.

The principal secretary disclosed the plans during a media briefing on regional integration and trade initiatives under the East African Community.

Karugu also said construction had started on Kenya's section of the second phase of the Standard Gauge Railway linking Naivasha to Kampala after President William Ruto and Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni launched the project.

She said Uganda had secured a partner to build its section of the railway from the border to Kampala.

According to Karugu, Kenya exported goods worth Sh351 billion to East African Community member states in the last financial year, a 9 per cent increase from the previous year.

She said Uganda accounted for about Sh126 billion of the trade, making it Kenya's largest trading partner within the bloc.

Karugu also raised concerns over attacks on Kenyan truck drivers operating along the South Sudan corridor, saying the issue had been raised directly with authorities in Juba.

"We made it not just a statistic, but we gave names to the numbers," said Karugu.

She said South Sudan had since increased surveillance along the corridor and cases involving Kenyan drivers had begun to decline, although security challenges remained.

Karugu added that Kenya had reduced checkpoints along the Northern Corridor from about 26 to the five permitted under East African Community regulations to ease the movement of goods across borders.