Communities living along Kenya's Lake Baringo, in the Rift Valley, are facing a growing threat as rising water levels drive crocodiles and hippos closer to homes, farmland, and fishing grounds. Wildlife encounters have increased sharply in recent years, and thousands of residents have been forced to abandon land their families have occupied for generations.

Lake Baringo, a freshwater lake in central Kenya roughly 300 kilometres north of Nairobi, has been expanding steadily for over a decade. Jackson Komen, a senior warden with the Kenya Wildlife Service, says the change became undeniable around 2014. "From 2009, 2010, up to date, the water level has never gone down," he said. The rising waters have already swallowed farms, schools, and tourist facilities around the lake's shores. Scientists are now warning of a further risk: Lake Bogoria, a saline lake immediately to the south, is moving closer to Lake Baringo, and a potential merging of the two bodies of water could trigger what Komen describes as "an ecological disaster that we may not know what to do with."

For families like that of fisherman Alfred Lekombe, the crisis is immediate and personal. Most of his relatives have already left. "My sisters have moved away, my older brother has moved, so now there are only three of us left here," he said, adding that those remaining are pooling resources to help each other relocate, having no other land to move to. As wildlife habitats shrink beneath the rising water, crocodiles and hippos are appearing in areas that were previously safe, putting both people and animals at greater risk.

Climate scientists link the lake's expansion to intensified and more frequent rainfall patterns driven by the broader climate crisis. The Rift Valley, a dramatic geological depression running through East Africa, has long been home to a chain of lakes whose levels fluctuate naturally — but the current rise is being seen as far beyond normal variation.

The situation around Lake Baringo reflects a wider pattern across East Africa, where climate-linked hydrological changes are reshaping landscapes and livelihoods at a pace that communities and governments are struggling to match. For those still living on the lake's edge, the question is no longer whether to leave, but how — and where — to go.