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By Christophe Uwizeyimana
Ibisi bya Huye Lake dries up due to human activities. This lake, past years survived different sunny seasons many times but today it’s no longer a lake due to human being.
The mountain of Ibisi bya Huye which held the lake at the top, is a mountain with a great history that belongs to Rwanda, so that today it is visited by many people. It is an amazing mountain because of its height of 2,400 meters while its summit has a small lake that has the unique feature of not drying up even in summer. The history of this particular hill is ancient. The Umuhinzakazi BENGINZAGE who was known as Nyagakecuru, a warrior and Queen who ruled Bungwe Kingdom in sixteenth century. The lake we mentioned in those years was there as the historians show.
In that time, Nyagakecuru who lived on the Top of the mountains, her cows got water from that lake. Once upon a time, the King of Rwanda who was in the struggle to expand Rwanda, Ruganzu II Ndori, attacked Nyagakecuru and conquered her, then he took Bungwe as new part of Rwanda. After that,the lake remained there, near where Nyagakekeru lived, for years and years.
This area of the Ibisi bya Huye became tourist destination and many people were happy to climb the hill so that, they can be told the history of Nyagakecuru. At the end of July 2022, When they arrived, they saw that the lake had completely dried up. It is something that surprised many who say that this lake deserves to be preserved. But it didn’t happen. They were surprised. They wondered what had happened and they fell into something and thought, would have been caused mainly by the change of circumstances.
How Ibisi bya Huye lake dried up:
The news that came to be known is that this lake has been drained by builders. These builders are said to have built in a place known as a tower on the top of the mountain, where they fetched the water of the lake, coincided with the spring season, and completely drained it and the lake was left as a desert.
The ForeFrontMagasine spoke to Kajuga Jerome, director of the Ibisumi Mountain Club, which is in charge of visitors of Ibisi bya Huye. He said: “We found Imibirikira, they were using to cry water of the lake.”
The drying up and reduction of the water level of the lakes is one of the signs of climate change according to experts. They are now requesting everyone to protect the lakes in order to preserve the ecosystem and natural resources. It is expected that the lake of Ibisi bya Huye may have water again when the rainy season returns.
Ibisi bya Huye is located in the district of Huye in the sector of Huye, close to another chain of high mountains known as the Kigasari mountains, where a man named Mba lived, and was also became famous in the history of Rwanda, and left a legend “Habe na Mba.”
