The corrugated iron buildings of Migingo island overlap at every turn. Photo / Recep Canik, Getty Images
The corrugated iron buildings of Migingo island overlap at every turn. Photo / Recep Canik, Getty Images
There's a strong sense of community on the island of Migingo - which is just as well.
Between Uganda and Kenya the tiny fishing island is half the size of a soccer pitch and home to five hundred people.
Among the corrugated iron rooves there is incredibly space for houses,a barber shop and more than one brothel.
It's so densely packed that many houses overlap with each other. On an island of barely 2000 square metres, there is only four metres square per inhabitant.
Fishermen set their nets for Nile perch at daybreak. Photo / Recep Canik, Getty Images
You can see why the people of Migingo take to the waters at any opportunity.
Fishermen set their nets for Nile perch at daybreak, which makes up the majority of the tiny islands' economy.
Fishermen live on the 2,000 square metres of Kenya's Migingo Island. Photo / Recep Canik, Getty Images
Another, darker aspect of the trades on the island also arrives by boat.
Prostitution is rife with women shipped to the island from neighbouring Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The island's corridors of corrugated iron and makeshift bars house fishermen of many different nationalities.
You appreciate why the people of Migingo take to the waters at any opportunity. Photo / Recep Canik, Getty Images
While the people of Migingo might get on in harmony, it is in fact the location for what has been called "Africa's smallest war".
All things arrive to Migingo via boat. Photo / Recep Canik, Getty Images
The island's position in the middle of Lake Victoria has led neighboring Kenya and Uganda to both lay claim to its sovereignty. Uganda was first to declare the island a haven for pirates and began policing the fishermen of the island.
Kenya responded to this by claiming the island as Ugandan dispatched its Marines to deal with the islanders.
In the middle of Lake Victoria, neighboring Kenya and Uganda have both lay claim to it. Photo / Recep Canik, Getty Images
Before the conflict could escalate, in 2009 it was ruled that Migingo was a Kenyan. Though today, the island is home to both Ugandans and Kenyans tensions still flare. The most recent of which was in September.
Speaking to Kenyan newspaper The Daily Nation, Migingo beach security chairman John Obunge Ugandan forces "pulled down the [Kenyan] flag and warned the Kenyan police deployed on the island against making such attempts again
