Rwanda 2023 – Nigrizia, LifeGate

Many folk legends have always existed about Lake Kivu, on the border between Rwanda and D.R.Congo. It has always been a mysterious lake and all the elders who live on its green shores know myths and legends.

Old fisherman Maurice Gahanage tells that the people and fishermen who disappeared into its dark waters “were sucked up by Mami Wata, the water deity of the lake.”

Young ferryman Samuel Manizabayo says he often smells a strange smell rising from the waters, especially when he passes by the rock “akarwa ka bakobwa” where those who committed serious acts were once abandoned by the local communities: “Legend says that the lake used to take them away to punish them.”

Not everyone knows that Lake Kivu hides a threatening secret and is one of the most dangerous lakes in the world: A geological anomaly. One day it could release the huge amount of gas that lies below its waters into the air and instantly kill more than two million people. A rare phenomenon known as a limnic eruption.

All it would take is a landslide, an earthquake, perhaps caused by the eruption of the nearby Nyiragongo volcano to make it happen.

One solution might be to extract all that gas, which is also a possible energy resource. Rwanda and D.R.Congo are already trying to do it, and the rush for this potential richness increases the already high tensions between the two countries happening right in this territory.