The border between Kenya and South Sudan is 317 km long and stretches northeast from the triple border with Uganda to the triple border with Ethiopia. The Border is currently in dispute and separates the state of South Sudan in eastern Equatoria from the Rift Valley province in Kenya.
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| South Sudan Border Kenya |
The border is generally made up of two almost straight tracks: the shortest, in the west, which begins at the triple border with Uganda and then ends in the northeast at the beginning of the longer track that continues to the triple border with Ethiopia, in the northernmost part of Lake Turkana. To the north of this route is the Ilemi Triangle, an area of 14,000 km2, claimed by Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan. Kenya currently occupies the disputed area.
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| South Sudan Border Kenya |
More than two-thirds of the total length of the border that make up an area known as the Ilemi Triangle are at the center of a dispute between South Sudan, Kenya, and Ethiopia. The conflict stems from poorly defined British colonial borders. The disputed area originally covered the borders between the British colony of Uganda and the Anglo-Egyptian condominium of Sudan. The Ugandan province of Rudolf was transferred to the Kenyan colony in 1926, followed by the remote and poorly defined Ilemi Triangle. In the following decades the boundaries were drawn several times.
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| South Sudan Border Kenya |
After the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, Italy briefly claimed the area of the Ilemi triangle. In 1938 the Wakefiled line was established by a joint Kenyan - Sudanese group as a temporary measure. In the 1940s, the British Foreign Office examined a "blue line" that was laid further north-west of the Wakefield line. A third line was unilaterally established by Sudan in 1950. Kenya maintains de facto control of the entire area, up to what is known as the Sudanese line of patrol. With the independence of South Sudan in 2011, the Sudanese claim to the Ilemi triangle was transferred to the new national government of Juba.