The story of Migingo – possibly the world’s tiniest territorial dispute

Since the turn of this century, the island of Migingo – which is smaller than a football pitch – has been the focus of a dispute between Kenya and Uganda, both of which lay claim to it. Mick O’Hare explains

The island lies on Lake Victoria and is just 2,000 sq m in size (AFP/Getty)

In 2021 arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, then Leader of the House of Commons, invited justifiable ridicule when in the aftermath of the Brexit withdrawal agreement he declared that fish in the North Sea were “happier” because they were “now British”. The speaker of the House, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, intervened to say that “obviously there is no overwhelming evidence for that”.

Yet, despite widespread dismissal of Rees-Mogg’s deliberately jingoistic line, there are fishermen on the tiny island of Migingo who share his sentiments. As do their competing governments. Fish, it seems, might have a nationality.

However serious or otherwise Rees-Mogg may have been, the nationality of fish – or their possible lack of it – is just one of the bones of contention in the seemingly endless spat over the world’s smallest disputed island.