For a number of years the boma was removed to the Kalungwishi River, and during this period the Belgian colonial authorities in Pweto, just across the border in DR Congo, controlled the northern end of the lake including the western extremity of Chiengi District, the so-called Lunchinda enclave west of the Lunchinda River. The British then re-established the boma at Chiengi but the eventual outcome of de facto Belgian control of the Lunchinda enclave led to it eventually being ceded to DR Congo by Zambia — see the article on the Luapula Province border dispute. Chiengi Boma was finally closed in 1933 and superseded by Kawambwa and then Nchelenge bomas. In addition to fishing in the lake, the chief trade of Chiengi in colonial times was in salt, which had been deposited in the dambo by streams running out of the hills, and there was a thriving trade. Chiengi was restored as a sub-administrative administrative centre under Nchelenge District of independent Zambia in the 1970s and as a full administrative District in the 1990s. The area has been affected by conflict in the Congo several times, most recently in the Second Congo War, when tens of thousands of refugees arrived and were settled in UNHCR camps in Kawambwa and Mporokoso Districts. Most of these have been repatriated since the end of that war. Reports have also been made of Congolese soldiers harassing Zambians at the border and inside Zambian territory. Chiengi is reached by a gravel road, frequently impassable in the rainy season, from Nchelenge and Kashikishi 100 km south (the same journey can be done by boat). From Chiengi a dirt track runs along the flat northern lake shore to Pweto in DR Congo. A new gravel road has been constructed north-east to the border, around the Chipani Swamp and east to Kasongola from where (in the dry season) tracks connect to Kaputa in Zambia's Northern Province.