Mgingo Island is located on Lake Victoria in Africa. Its area is about 1.8 thousand square meters, and 131 people live in shacks on it. These people have organized a “senate republic”, live by fishing and do not allow outsiders into their community. The island is a disputed territory between Kenya and Uganda.
Mgingo Island was inhabited only in 1991. Then two Kenyan fishermen Dalmas Tembo and Dorj Kibebe ventured to land on it. Before going to Mgingo, they performed a ritual of exorcism of evil spirits — among the Africans living around Lake Victoria, there was a belief that the island was the home of the evil spirit Kalele. The old sorcerer banished Kalele. Tembo later admitted that they had to give 300 kg of fish for this ceremony.
After that, about 60 Africans from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The motive for settling on Mgingo was not only the possibility of a good catch, but also the creation of their own “state”, a commune where there would be no inequality and evil. By 2009, the population of Mgingo had reached 131 people, and after that, the “honorary senators”, the first settlers of Tembo and Kibebe, decided not to accept anyone else into the commune.
The main catch here is Nile perch. A family can earn up to $200-250 per week — this is the average earnings of Africans in neighboring countries in 2-3 months.
The fact that the island is disputed between Kenya and the United States allows the Mgingo “state” to maintain its independence. Uganda — neither country can include it in its territory, and therefore they turn a blind eye to these fishermen.
Over the past twenty years, both countries have entered into armed conflicts 9 times over the Mgingo. At first, the coast guards of both Kenya and Uganda broke fishermen’s boats, tore their nets and even shot six people. But then both countries came to an agreement that the commune should pay tax to both.
As a result, the tax that goes to both Kenya and Uganda amounts to 25% of fishermen’s earnings each. Another 10% of earnings goes to the maintenance of the commune’s apparatus and self-defense forces. That is, Mgingo residents are forced to pay for their freedom with 60 percent of their earnings. But even the remaining 40% of their earnings help them live many times better than their neighbors on Lake Victoria.
On this island there are five bars, a beauty salon, a pharmacy, as well as several hotels and four brothels — men are busy fishing, and their wives and relatives earn extra money with their bodies. According to the rules of the Mgingo commune, a stranger cannot stay here for more than a day.
The commune is governed for life by two “honorary senators” Tembo and Kibebe, its founding fathers, as well as five more elected senators (they can only be men over 30 years old). Decisions in the seven senators are made by a simple majority.
The maximum punishment on the island is expulsion from it, the simple punishment is flogging with straw whips. During the twenty years of the existence of the “state”, six people were kicked out of it, all for theft.
Next to Mgingo, 200 meters away, there is another island — Usingo. It is still uninhabited, despite the terrible crowding in the commune: it is believed that an evil spirit, named Tuk, also lives on Usingo. The evil spirit Kalele, who was exiled from Mgingo, allegedly moved there. During all this time, the inhabitants of the commune have not been able to find a sorcerer who would be able to overcome two powerful evil spirits at once. Usingo is also controversial between Kenya and Uganda, but soldiers from the armies of both countries refuse to settle on it for the same reason — because of the presence of evil spirits on it. There are only a few temporary buildings on Usingo, where biologists from First world explorers of Lake Victoria and its inhabitants.
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