EVOLUTION OF ILEMI TRIANGLE

Background

The Republic of KENYA and The Republic of SOUTH SUDAN are neighboring states in the East African
Region. SOUTH SUDAN lies to the North Western side of KENYA. The Federal Democratic Republic of
ETHIOPIA is to the North, the Republic of UGANDA to the West and the Republic of TANZANIA to the
South while the Republic of SOMALIA lies to the East. The Indian Ocean is to the South East. The seven
East African countries have a common historical background in terms of their colonial masters, except
for ETHIOPIA which was never colonized. The colonial master left a number of boundary sections that
were not clearly demarcated between some of the East Africa countries. An area that was not clearly
demarcated is the border between KENYA and SOUTH SUDAN.

The ILEMI triangle is the land that lies to the North West of KENYA’s territory covering an approx. area of
6169 Square Kilometers. During the dry season, it is home to DINKA, TOPOSA of SOUTH SUDAN,
NYAGATOM and DASANECH of ETHIOPIA and TURKANA of KENYA. The Triangle was a creation of the
BERLIN Conference of 1884 to 1885. The arbitrary drawing of boundaries first set the boundary along
the BLACK LINE of 1902. The BRITISH colonial masters who controlled both SUDAN and KENYA moved
this boundary further eastwards in order to stop the tribal incursions between the TURKANA of KENYA
and TOPOSA of SUDAN, and to return more of the customary TURKANA tribal grazing land. This led to
the “GLENARY Line” or the RED LINE of 1938. The GLENARY Line did not return all the TURKANA grazing
land hence the tribal conflict continued. The BRITISH Governor moved the line further eastwards to
what is known as the BLUE LINE of 1947. In 1950, the BRITISH Army in SUDAN established a patrol line
north of the BLUE LINE and the two countries agreed that this was the northern most limit of span of
control for the security forces. This line became the YELLOW PATROL LINE of 1950, which is considered
to be the common international boundary between KENYA and SUDAN.

Since then KENYA has continued to exercise sovereignty over the ILEMI Triangle, providing
administration, security, infrastructure development and exercises legal jurisdiction. KENYA claims legal
ownership of the triangle on the basis of the principle of effective occupation quoting the International
Law which provides that any State that exercises sovereignty over given territory for over 50 years is
deemed to own the territory.

SOUTH SUDAN, upon attaining independence from SUDAN on 09 July 2011, started consolidating its
sovereignty by claiming disputed territories including ILEMI. The move is likely to be driven by the desire
to harness natural resources found in the triangle.

Current Situation

The security situation along the Kenya - South Sudan border remains unpredictable with tension being
experienced in the general area of NADAPAL in Sep 20 when TOPOSA Kraals crossed into KENYA as
pastoralists in search of pasture and water. However, the situation has remained calm after the
pastoralists went back and relocated their Kraals to SOUTH SUDAN.

In Sep 20, the SPLA in NADAPAL blocked the construction of NADAPAL - NAKODOK road claiming that
the government of South Sudan would undertake the construction.
The government of SOUTH SUDAN has established various permanent development infrastructure at
NADAPAL. The infrastructure includes communication masts, permanent buildings, military camp and
roads among others. In addition, the SPLA continues to collect taxes from cross border traders at
NADAPAL.

TURKANA County hosts large number of SOUTH SUDAN refugees in KAKUMA which poses a security
threat to KENYA. There are 154,000 refugees divided into two major factions similar to the warring
factions of SOUTH SUDAN. These factions occasionally enter into conflicts based on various reasons
including political reasons. It is also assessed that SOUTH SUDAN intelligence agencies operate from the
camp disguised as refugees.

A Joint Border Commission was formed in 1 July 2019 for demarcation of the common border but has
not yielded much progress.