page_title: Ilemi Triangle
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ilemi Triangle / History
caption_attribution_description: Ilemi triangle (light area), disputed area between Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya Red line = established by joint Kenya-Sudan survey team in 1938 as a temporary measure. (also known as wakefield line) Blue line = established by Britain’s Foreign Office in 1947 Sudanese Patrol Line = unilaterally established by Sudan in 1950. (Yellow line is country boundaries) Reference and further information: DELIMITATION OF THE ELASTIC ILEMI TRIANGLE: PASTORAL CONFLICTS AND OFFICIAL INDIFFERENCE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA See also: satellite image
context_page_description: The Ilemi Triangle is an area of disputed land in East Africa. Arbitrarily defined, it measures between 10,320 and 14,000 square kilometres. Named after Anuak chief Ilemi Akwon, the territory is claimed by South Sudan and Kenya. The territory also borders Ethiopia and, despite use and "trespass" into the triangle by border tribes from within Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government has never made any official claim on the Ilemi, and in fact agreed that the land was all Sudanese in the 1902, 1907, and 1972 treaties.
  Kenya now has de facto control of the area. The dispute arose from the 1914 treaty in which a straight parallel line was used to divide territories that were both part of the British Empire. However the Turkana people—nomadic herders continued to move to and from the border and traditionally grazed in the area.
  The perceived economic marginality of the land as well as decades of Sudanese conflicts are two factors that have delayed the resolution of the dispute.
context_section_description: To the southeast of the Ilemi, Ethiopian emperor Menelik laid claim to Lake Turkana and proposed a boundary with the British to run from the southern end of the lake eastward to the Indian Ocean, which was shifted northward when the British and Ethiopian governments signed a treaty in 1907, reaffirmed by a 1970 Ethiopia-Kenya treaty.
  The Ethiopia-Sudan boundary, the "Maud Line", was surveyed by Captain Philip Maud of the Royal Engineers in 1902–03.  It was adopted by Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement treaty of December 6, 1907 between Ethiopia and British East Africa.  Though vague on the precise details of where the Kenya-Sudan border was located, it clearly placed the entire Ilemi on the west side of the Ethiopia-Sudan line.
  In 1914 the Uganda-Sudan Boundary Commission agreement provided Sudan access to Lake Turkana via the now-dry Sanderson Gulf at the southeast corner of the Ilemi (at the time Lake Turkana was the border between the British territories of Uganda and Kenya). After World War I, the Ethiopians armed the Nyangatom and Dassanech peoples, whereby the traditional raids turned into battles where hundreds died.
caption: A map of the Ilemi Triangle showing 1938 "red line", 1947 "blue line" and Sudan's 1950 patrol line (green).
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