Why did Somalis leave, and when?

Show who took part and what each event meant for unity Somalis left in waves, each with its own cause. Seamen came first, then students and Gulf workers, then refugees from war, famine and drought.

UNHCR counted 805,917 refugees from Somalia in its five main host countries in the region on 31 October 2026 (UNHCR Horn of Africa data portal, 2026). About 3.5 million more were displaced inside Somalia (UNHCR Somalia dashboard, Nov 2025).

What are the waves at a glance?

1500 to 1884

1. 1880s to 1950s:

   seamen and traders on British, French and German steamships (Krozewski, IJAHS).

1960 to 1969

1. 1960s to 1970s:

   students on scholarships to the Soviet Union, Italy and the United States (MNopedia).

1969 to 1991

1. 1970s to 1980s:

   workers to the Gulf oil states (Ahmed, Disasters, 2000).

2. 1977 to 1983:

   Somalis and Oromo from Ethiopia flee into Somalia after the Ogaden war (Africa Watch, Evil Days, 1991).

3. 1988 to 1991:

   war in the north sends nearly half a million people abroad, mostly to Ethiopia (HRW World Report 1990).

1991 to 2000

1. 1991 to 1992:

   the central state collapses and famine follows (HRW World Report 1993).

2000 to 2012

1. 2007 to 2009:

   fighting in Mogadishu (UN News, May 2007).

2. 2010 to 2012:

   famine kills about 258,000 people (FSNAU and FEWS NET, 2013).

3. 2016 to 2017 and 2021 to 2023:

   droughts displace well over a million people (OCHA via ReliefWeb, Nov 2022).

When did the first Somalis go abroad?

The first large group were seamen. Somali men worked in the engine rooms of British, French and German steamships from the 1880s to the Second World War (Krozewski, IJAHS). They were linked above all with stoking work on British tramp ships, the same source says.

The Suez Canal opened in 1869, and in 1888 Britain set up a protectorate to guard the Aden route (Mohamud and Whitburn, Our Migration Story). Many seamen signed on in Aden or Egypt and were often recorded as "Arabs" (Our Migration Story). Small Somali communities lived in Cardiff and London by the late 19th century, the same historians write.

1. Cardiff:

   Somali men defended a Millicent Street boarding house during the 1919 riots, in the account of seaman Ibrahim Ismaa'il (Our Migration Story).

2. Britain overall:

   the first Somali seafarers in the Merchant Navy settled more than a century ago (Ahmed, 2000).

3. New York:

   the first Somalis in the United States were sailors who settled there in the 1920s (MNopedia).

4. Marseille:

   an association of people from the French Somali Coast existed there from 1948 to 1953 (Cayla-Giraudeau, REAF 2018).

How many seamen there were is hard to say. The number arriving in the early 1900s "is difficult to determine" (Our Migration Story).

Who left to study after independence in 1960?

Students left on scholarships. Somali students began arriving in the Soviet Union in 1961, under a new Soviet scholarship scheme (Ivanova, Kunstkamera, 2019).

Between 1956 and 1969, groups of Somali students began degrees in Mogadishu and completed them in Padua, Italy (Urbano, Firenze University Press). Somali students also began coming to the United States in the 1960s (MNopedia).

Why did so many go to the Gulf in the 1970s and 1980s?

The oil boom created jobs. Remittances have mattered to the north-west's economy "since the oil boom in the Gulf in 1970s" (Ahmed, 2000).

A 1987 study by Green and Jamal put Somali migrant workers abroad at no fewer than 375,000 (cited in Ahmed, 2000). It estimated their yearly remittances at US$478 million to US$540 million. Most Gulf migrants came from the north-west because it lies close to the Gulf, Ahmed adds.

What happened after the Ogaden war of 1977-78?

People fled into Somalia, not out of it. After Somalia's defeat, Ethiopian forces fought insurgents in the Ogaden and attacked villages and herds (Africa Watch, Evil Days, 1991). Many of those who fled were Oromo, not ethnic Somali, the same report says.

Africa Watch gives this rise in camp numbers inside Somalia (Evil Days, 1991):

1. Mid-1978:

   80,000 to 85,000.

2. Mid-1979:

   220,000.

3. End of 1979:

   440,000 to 470,000.

4. End of 1980:

   about 800,000.

In July 1980, 725,000 registered refugees lived in 26 camps, mainly in Gedo, Hiiraan and the north-west (Christian Science Monitor, 1980). Over 90 percent were women and children, the paper reported.

The totals were disputed. By 1983 the government claimed 1.3 million refugees, while donors put the true number at 700,000 to 800,000 (Evil Days, 1991). In 1980 officials claimed over 2 million, against one UN official's estimate of 1.5 million (CS Monitor, 1980).

Why did people flee the north in 1988?

War broke out in May 1988 between the government and the Somali National Movement (SNM) (HRW World Report 1990). Human Rights Watch said the army drew no line between civilians and fighters, and destroyed livestock and water reservoirs.

By early 1990, an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 people had been killed in the north (HRW World Report 1990). "Nearly half a million" had fled the country, most to Ethiopia, others to Djibouti and Yemen. Sizeable groups reached England and Wales.

The US Government Accountability Office studied why refugees fled to Ethiopia and how much of Hargeisa was destroyed (GAO, NSIAD-89-159, May 1989). A Mogadishu research institute writes that the bombing drove more than 600,000 Somalis to Ethiopia (Heritage Institute, 2018, in Somali). The two figures differ, and both are given here.

The 1988 war forced "almost the entire population of the north" to seek refuge abroad or in the south (Ahmed, 2000). Many joined the older Somali community in Britain, Ahmed notes.

What was Hartisheikh?

Hartisheikh was a camp in eastern Ethiopia that held more than 250,000 Somali refugees at its height (UN News, July 2004). Most came from Gabiley and Hargeisa. UNHCR closed it in 2004 when the last 719 residents went home; more than 230,000 had returned since April 1997.

Why did people leave when the central state collapsed in 1991?

Fighting and hunger. Fighting in Mogadishu from November 1991 to February 1992 killed about 14,000 people and injured 27,000 (HRW World Report 1993). Famine and disease caused up to 300,000 deaths by mid-1992, the same report says.

People went in every direction:

1. Kenya:

   UNHCR built the first three Dadaab camps between October 1991 and June 1992, for up to 90,000 people (UNHCR, 2012).

2. Ethiopia:

   a camp at Hartisheikh, near the border, had taken in people from the north since 1988 (UN News, 2004).

3. Yemen:

   about 60,000 Somali refugees were there by August 1992 (HRW World Report 1993).

4. United States:

   visas for Somali refugees began in 1992 (MNopedia).

What happened to minority communities?

Minority communities fled too, often with no armed group to protect them.

1. Somali Bantu (Jareer):

   in 1991 one family walked from their farm to Kismayo, then 14 nights along the coast to Kenya (Smithsonian, 2004). From 1992 they lived in Marafa camp near Malindi, then Kakuma.

2. Somali Bantu resettlement:

   the United States planned to resettle up to 12,000 Somali Bantu, and the first families arrived in May 2003 (Smithsonian, 2004).

3. Somali Bantu in Tanzania:

   about 3,000 refugees of Zigua ancestry were settled at Chogo and later naturalised (UNHCR).

4. Benadiri (Reer Xamar):

   many were merchants who had no militia for protection, and most fled to Kenya (Minority Rights Group, 2018).

5. Benadiri in Yemen:

   500 Benadir families from the southern coast had lived in Yemen since 1992 (The New Humanitarian).

6. Bajuni:

   islanders from near Kismayo fled in 1991 to Jomvu camp near Mombasa, closed in late 1997 (Nurse, review of 2000 fact-finding report).

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).

Why it matters (Calankii)

Almost every Somali family has someone who left in one of these waves. Knowing when and why they left lets young Somalis read their own family story as part of a national one. The banner carried since 1895 belongs to those who stayed and those who went alike.

Related pages

• 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

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