The border between Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo is being redrawn — by a river!

Technocrats from the two countries are quietly working to head off a dispute as River Semliki, which defines part of their common frontier, rapidly changes course.

A joint committee of surveyors is now drawing upon a 1915 agreement between Britain and Belgium to plot a boundary based on geographical co-ordinates instead.

Randomly ceding huge chunks of territory in a wild give and take, the Semliki River has changed course so much over the past half-century that it has transferred as much as 50 square kilometres of Congolese territory to Uganda.

The river flows from Lake Edward to Lake Albert — with tributaries joining it from the northern slopes of the Rwenzori mountains.

Experts have lately been warning that climate change could see the flaring up of new conflicts around the region as natural features change character.

The recent shifts in the course of the Semliki are being attributed to the melting of glaciers on the Rwenzori.

These have seen new tributaries join the river.

As a result, experts are struggling to keep track of the original borderline.

Speaking at the recent launch in Kampala of a report on climate change by the UK’s Department for International Development, a Makerere University zoologist, J.B Kaddu, said besides threats to traditional mountainside livelihoods, climate change also had the potential to provoke new conflicts between countries whose borders were defined by variable natural features such as water bodies.

Equally, border issues like the Migingo island saga that has pitted Uganda against its eastern neighbour, Kenya, could become more complicated if a further fall in Lake Victoria water levels increases the size of the island above water.

Seen as a permanent feature back then, the Semliki, which flows through Semliki National Park in Uganda before draining into Lake Albert, was used to define part of the border between Belgian Congo and Uganda in the late 19th century.

But with its volume and course determined by the amount of runoff from the Rwenzori Mountains, the melting of glaciers as a result of higher temperatures has seen the river vary course in recent times.

According to Prof Kaddu, the glaciers have recessed from four to 1.7 square kilometres during the 40 years to 1996.

The National Environment Management Authority’s State of the Environment Report 2008 reveals that the river changed its course in a total of 151 locations — 84 inside Uganda and 66 inside the DRC, as seen from satellite imagery.

Information from the National Survey and Mapping Department reveals that DRC has lost more territory than Uganda.

“It is a situation of give and take, as the change affects one country at one point and vice versa, but at the delta, the river has given a lot of land to Uganda.

“The biggest effect is that the mouth of the river is some kilometres away. It is about 49 square kilometres,” said John Kitaka, acting Assistant Commissioner for Mapping.

Uganda and the DRC have previously clashed over the small island of Rukwanzi in Lake Albert.

In the same year, 2007, the Congolese army occupied a disputed border area in West Nile after moving their border posts four kilometres inside Uganda.

The clashes prompted Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Joseph Kabila of Congo to meet under Tanzanian mediation, culminating in the Ngurdoto agreement that provided for a joint commission to verify and define the common borderlines.

Although there is a committee with representation from each country that has met thrice, not much progress has been done on this stretch of land.

Ugandan officials said the DRC is yet to raise financing for marking the borders, whose description on paper by the colonial governments was never translated on the ground.

Acting Commissioner for Survey and Mapping Moddy Nsubuga Kajumbula said the marking could be done within 10 months if funds were made available.

Each country, he said would require $3m to fix the water boundary and erect new pillars northwards to a tree junction point with Sudan.

“We shall refer to the 1915 Anglo-Belgian agreement — a treaty which described the boundary — and retrace the boundaries from the original point.

“We are proposing to follow that description even where the river changed its course. We have special instruments that can do that,” Mr Kajumbula said.     

The same agreement is also being used to redefine Uganda’s border with Rwanda in the Katuna wetlands.

As a result of severe rainwater shortfalls in recent years, people in the area have resorted to cultivating in the wetlands, impeding the natural flow of the river that separates Rwanda from Uganda.

As a result, the river has also changed course, leading to the dispute over the boundary and the water resources.

Internally, climate change is also affecting the natural boundaries as defined at Independence.

In eastern Uganda, rivers have changed cause, moving the boundaries of Mbale with neighbouring districts as at independence.