Community
Kenya (Eastleigh, Dadaab, North Eastern Kenya)
Kenya hosts about 495,000 Somali refugees and asylum seekers (November 2025), most of them in the Dadaab camps, which opened in 1991. Nairobi's Eastleigh is a major Somali trading hub, and Kenyan Somalis are citizens of Kenya, whom this page treats as neighbours.
Respect first
Many Kenyans are ethnic Somalis, especially in North Eastern Kenya and Nairobi. They are Kenyan citizens, and Calankii makes no claim on them. This page is mainly about refugees from Somalia living in Kenya.
Who lives there
Kenya hosts 872,109 refugees and asylum seekers, and 494,940 of them are Somalis. Dadaab holds 442,934 people (292,058 refugees and 150,876 asylum seekers). Another 118,466 refugees live in cities such as Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru (UNHCR Kenya, 30 Nov 2025).
Dadaab, about 100 km from the border, opened in 1991. Its camps are Dagahaley, Ifo and Hagadera. Over 96% of its people are Somali, and it peaked at more than 500,000 people in 2011 (Al Jazeera, 2025).
Eastleigh in Nairobi has more than 130,000 residents and about 200,000 visitors a day (People Daily).
Work and money
- Eastleigh: a wholesale and retail hub, with the Business Bay Square mall (130,000 m²) and high-rises full of finance, clothing, cosmetics and import businesses. Buyers come from Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia and Somalia (People Daily).
- Dadaab: refugees need permits to leave the camp, and jobs are scarce, but an informal market runs anyway. WFP cut rations to 28% by mid-2025 and ended cash. The Bamba Chakula food voucher fell from about $6 to $4 a person (Al Jazeera).
- North Eastern Kenya: herding counties. In Garissa, the distance herders walk with their animals rose from 11 km to 15.1 km between December 2025 and February 2026 (CARE via ReliefWeb, Mar 2026).
Who serves the community
The Government of Kenya. Under the Shirika Plan, launched in March 2025 to run for 11 years at an estimated $943 million, Garissa County would turn the camps into integrated towns (Al Jazeera). The National Drought Management Authority issues drought bulletins. Nyumba Kumi neighbourhood elders work in Eastleigh (People Daily).
What the community faces now
- Mid-2025: rations at 28% in Dadaab, and acute malnutrition among children and mothers above 13% (Al Jazeera).
- 2025: water in Dadaab halved, from 20 to 10 litres a person a day.
- March 2026: the worst level of acute malnutrition (IPC Phase 5) was confirmed in Mandera, and 3.3 million Kenyans faced high food insecurity (ReliefWeb).
Top needs (refugees)
- Food and water, provided by aid agencies.
- Records that families keep, for return or for Shirika registration.
- Facts about home districts.
- Income.
- Remembrance after 35 years in camps.
Sources
- UNHCR Kenya, 30 Nov 2025 · unhcr.org
- Al Jazeera, 2025 · liberties.aljazeera.com
- People Daily · peopledaily.digital
- CARE via ReliefWeb, Mar 2026 · reliefweb.int
Gathered in our research record “Community profiles”. Wikipedia is used only as a backup.
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