Famines, fighting and drought: Somalis who left from 1992 to now

Show who took part and what each event meant for unity Since 1992, famine, fighting and drought have kept Somalis moving, inside the country and across borders. The overview of every wave is at [Why did Somalis leave, and when?](/en/diaspora/why-and-how-somalis-left/).

How bad was the 1992 famine?

Human Rights Watch reported up to 300,000 deaths from famine and disease by mid-1992 (HRW World Report 1993). The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine cites an estimated 220,000 deaths over 12 months (LSHTM, 2013).

Displaced people in Baidoa camps had an average daily death rate of 16.8 per 10,000 people (CDC, MMWR). Researchers called this one of the highest rates recorded for civilians over a long period.

Why did people leave Mogadishu in 2007?

Fighting broke out between the transitional government, backed by Ethiopian troops, and insurgents. About 394,000 people fled Mogadishu between early February and early May 2007, over a third of the city (UN News, 4 May 2007). Afgooye took 43,000, Baidoa almost 17,000 and Galkacyo almost 10,000.

Kenya closed its border with Somalia on 3 January 2007, after Ethiopian troops entered Somalia (HRW, From Horror to Hopelessness, 2009). People still came: about 60,000 Somali asylum seekers entered Kenya in 2008. By February 2009, Dadaab held about 255,000 people in camps built for 90,000.

Sea crossings to Yemen also rose, to a record 50,000 arrivals in 2008 (HRW, Hostile Shores, 2009).

How many died in the 2011 famine, and where did people go?

About 258,000 people died of famine and severe hunger in southern and central Somalia, October 2010 to April 2012 (FSNAU and FEWS NET, 2013). About 133,000 were children under five.

1. Peak:

   about 30,000 excess deaths a month from May to August 2011 (FSNAU).

2. Share:

   4.6 percent of the population and 10 percent of children under five in the south and centre died.

3. Hardest hit:

   child deaths were highest in Lower Shabelle, Mogadishu and Bay.

Arrivals at Dadaab often topped 1,000 a day: about 30,000 in June, 40,000 in July and 38,000 in August 2011 (UNHCR, 2012). A third of the region's roughly one million Somali refugees left Somalia in 2011, UNHCR said.

By October 2011, Ethiopia's Dollo Ado area had five camps: Bokolmanyo, Melkadida, Kobe, Hilaweyn and Buramino (UNHCR Dollo Ado update, 9 Oct 2011). Ground for Buramino was broken on 7 October 2011, and 2,985 people arrived in the first eight days of that month. By August 2012, Somali refugees in the region passed one million, and 1.3 million more were displaced inside Somalia (UNHCR, Aug 2012).

What did the 2017 and 2021-23 droughts do?

They pushed people from farms and herds into towns and camps, mostly inside Somalia.

2012 to 2020

1. 2016-17:

   UNHCR's monitoring network recorded 761,000 drought displacements from 1 November 2016 to 23 June 2017 (UNHCR PRMN, 2017).

2020 to now

1. 2021-22:

   1,355,797 people were displaced by drought from January 2021 to the end of November 2022 (OCHA via ReliefWeb).

2. 2022 deaths:

   about 43,000 excess deaths, half of them children under five (WHO and UNICEF, March 2023).

3. 2022 to mid-2024:

   a later study put drought-linked excess deaths at 71,000 or more (Citizen Digital).

In 2022 the highest excess deaths were in Bay, Bakool and Banadir (UNICEF, 2023).

Where are Somali refugees now?

UNHCR counted these refugees from Somalia on its regional data portal (UNHCR, 2026):

1. Ethiopia:

   368,165 (31 October 2026).

2. Kenya:

   334,733 (31 October 2026).

3. Uganda:

   48,340 (31 October 2026).

4. Yemen:

   40,982 (31 August 2026).

5. Djibouti:

   13,697 (31 August 2026).

That totals 805,917. Kenya's figure was 468,507 at the end of 2024 by an earlier UNHCR count (UNHCR infographic, Dec 2024).

Are people still being displaced inside Somalia?

Yes. UNHCR's monitoring network recorded 553,000 internal displacements in 2024 (UNHCR Somalia dashboard, Jan 2025). In November 2025 alone it recorded about 146,000, 71 percent caused by drought (UNHCR dashboard, Nov 2025).

That month, Sanaag in the north saw the most displacement, including 50,600 arrivals in Ceerigaabo (UNHCR, Nov 2025). The full record of displacement inside the country is on the internal displacement page.

Do people come back?

Some do. Since December 2014, 141,673 refugees have returned to Somalia, and UNHCR helped 97,293 of them (UNHCR dashboard, Nov 2025). The largest groups came from Kenya (85,904) and Yemen (53,515).

What else has been reported?

1. 2016-17 drought:

   UNHCR's monitoring network counted about 893,000 drought-related displacements from 1 November 2016 to 31 August 2017, 804,000 of them in 2017 (UNHCR Somalia fact sheet, August 2017). This is higher than the June 2017 figure given in the drought section because it runs two months longer.

Related pages

• Why did Somalis leave, and when? (overview)
• The 1988 war in the north and the 1991 collapse
• Which routes did Somalis take to leave?
• Somali refugees by the numbers
• Kenya
• Ethiopia
• Yemen
• Collapse, 1991-2000
• The Siad Barre era, 1969-1991
• Minority communities
• Internal displacement
• Remittances in numbers
• Carried the banner since 1895

Sources

1. UNHCR. "Refugees from Somalia", Horn of Africa situation data portal. UNHCR, data to 31 Oct 2026. https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/horn. Checked 2026-11-12.
2. UNHCR Somalia. "Population Dashboard, November 2025". UNHCR, via ecoi.net, 2025. https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2135144/UNHCR+Somalia+Population+Dashboard+-+Nov+2025.pdf. Checked 2026-11-12.
3. UNHCR Somalia. "Population Dashboard, January 2025". UNHCR, 2025. https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/114871. Checked 2026-11-12.
4. Human Rights Watch. "World Report 1993: Somalia". HRW, 1993. https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1993/WR93/Afw-08.htm. Checked 2026-11-12.
5. UNHCR. "Dadaab, world's biggest refugee camp, 20 years old". UNHCR press release, 2012. https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/unhcr-fn-s-flykting-kommissarie/news/dadaab-world-s-biggest-refugee-camp-20-years-old-36270. Checked 2026-11-12.
6. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Somalia famine worst in past 25 years". LSHTM, May 2013. https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2013/somalia_famine.html. Checked 2026-11-12.
7. US Centers for Disease Control. Mortality survey of displaced persons in Baidoa, 1992. MMWR. https://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/00018099.htm. Checked 2026-11-12.
8. UN News. Report on displacement from Mogadishu. United Nations, 4 May 2007. https://news.un.org/en/story/2007/05/217812. Checked 2026-11-12.
9. Human Rights Watch. "From Horror to Hopelessness". HRW, 30 Mar 2009. https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/30/horror-hopelessness/kenyas-forgotten-somali-refugee-crisis. Checked 2026-11-12.
10. Human Rights Watch. "Hostile Shores: Abuse and Refoulement of Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Yemen". HRW, 20 Dec 2009. https://www.hrw.org/en/node/87224/section/9. Checked 2026-11-12.
11. FSNAU (FAO) and FEWS NET. "Study suggests 258,000 Somalis died due to severe food insecurity and famine". FSNAU, 2 May 2013. https://fsnau.org/in-focus/technical-release-study-suggests-258000-somalis-died-due-severe-food-insecurity-and-famine-. Checked 2026-11-12.
12. UNHCR Ethiopia. "Dollo Ado Bi-Weekly Update". UNHCR, 9 Oct 2011. https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/31151. Checked 2026-11-12.
13. UNHCR. "Somali refugee population in Horn of Africa passes one million, but exodus slows". UNHCR, 31 Aug 2012. https://data.unhcr.org/en/news/9802. Checked 2026-11-12.
14. UNHCR Protection and Return Monitoring Network. "Somalia drought related displacements to 23 June 2017". UNHCR, 2017. https://data.unhcr.org/fr/documents/details/58292. Checked 2026-11-12.
15. OCHA. "Somalia: Drought and famine displacement monitoring dashboard, November 2022". ReliefWeb, 2022. https://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/somalia-drought-and-famine-displacement-monitoring-dashboard-november-2022. Checked 2026-11-12.
16. UNICEF and WHO. "New study finds that 43,000 excess deaths may have occurred in 2022 from the drought in Somalia". UNICEF Somalia, 20 Mar 2023. https://www.unicef.org/somalia/press-releases/new-study-finds-43000-excess-deaths-may-have-occurred-2022-drought-somalia. Checked 2026-11-12.
17. Citizen Digital. "Drought led to 71,000 excess deaths in Somalia, report shows". https://citizen.digital/news/drought-led-to-71000-excess-deaths-in-somalia-report-shows-n356481. Checked 2026-11-12.
18. UNHCR. Somali refugees by country of asylum, infographic, 31 Dec 2024. https://data.unhcr.org/es/documents/download/114055. Checked 2026-11-12.
19. UNHCR Somalia. "Fact Sheet, 1-31 August 2017". https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/60042. Checked 2026-11-12.