Last updated: 2026-10-19

Why Somalis Migrate: Civil War, al-Shabaab, Drought and Displacement in Somalia (2026)

At the end of 2025 the UN refugee agency recorded 892,037 Somali refugees and 236,271 asylum-seekers worldwide, and about 3.3 million people displaced inside Somalia (UNHCR Refugee Data, UNHCR Somalia dashboard). The main drivers are the collapse of the central government in January 1991 and the conflict since, the insurgency of al-Shabaab, and repeated droughts and famines. About 71% of Somali refugees live in Kenya and Ethiopia, not in Europe or North America (site calculation from the same UNHCR data).

Last updated 19 October 2026. Figures on casualties and fighter numbers are broad estimates from secondary sources and are labelled as such. Where no primary figure could be verified, this page says so rather than giving a number.

Key figures

Why did Somalis start leaving Somalia?

Somalia's central government collapsed in January 1991 when armed clan-based opposition groups overthrew President Siad Barre, and no stable central authority followed for most of the period since. The Wikipedia overview of the Somali Civil War records United Nations military operations from 1992 to 1995, an Ethiopian intervention in 2006 against the Islamic Courts Union, and the formation of a new federal government in 2012.

Casualty estimates in that overview range from 350,000 to over 1,000,000 deaths between 1991 and 2022, and from 2 million to 3.8 million displaced people. These are broad secondary estimates, not official counts. Resettlement of Somali refugees in the United States began in 1990, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

What is al-Shabaab and how much of Somalia does it control?

Al-Shabaab is a militant group that emerged in the mid-2000s from the youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union and controls a non-contiguous set of mainly rural areas in southern and central Somalia. Wikipedia gives a founding date of 2003 in Las Anod but notes uncertainty. Estimates of its fighters run from 3,000 to 6,000 (2018) to 15,000 to 18,000 (the Somali president's late-2022 figure), so no single number is reliable.

The deadliest single attack in Somalia's recent history was the 14 October 2017 truck bombing in Mogadishu, which killed at least 587 people according to a committee cited by Hiiraan Online via Wikipedia. No group claimed it, but officials attributed it to al-Shabaab. Most victims were Somalis, and al-Shabaab's victims in Somalia are overwhelmingly Somali. Where extremism appears elsewhere in this section, the people involved were Muslims who became radicalised; most Somali Muslims are not extremists. For individual cases in the diaspora, see the security cases page.

How have droughts and famines driven displacement?

Droughts have repeatedly displaced people inside Somalia and across borders, and in the first quarter of 2026 drought caused 93% of recorded internal displacements. Selected episodes:

• 2011. The UN declared famine on 20 July 2011 in Lower Shabelle and Bakool, later extended to other districts, and announced it over in February 2012 (Wikipedia, citing the UN, NYT and BBC). More than 920,000 Somali refugees were in neighbouring countries by 15 September 2011, mainly in Kenya and Ethiopia. The death toll is uncertain: the encyclopaedia page gives a range of 50,000 to 260,000, and a higher figure attributed to a 2013 FEWS NET and FSNAU study could not be opened, so it is not used.
• 2017. Drought displaced large numbers and famine was widely feared, but no primary UN or IPC figure was retrieved, so no number is given.
• 2022. An estimated 43,000 people died in the 2022 drought, about half of them under five, with 3.1 million internally displaced and 6.7 million severely affected, per reports cited on Wikipedia (the original authors of the death estimate were not confirmed).
• 2026. UNHCR recorded 511,797 internal displacements in the first quarter, 476,142 of them (93%) caused by drought (UNHCR PSMN Q1 2026). The World Bank says drought, cuts in foreign aid and higher living costs weighed on the economy in 2025, with growth slowing to 3.1% (World Bank).

How many Somali refugees and displaced people are there?

UNHCR recorded 892,037 refugees and 236,271 asylum-seekers originating from Somalia at the end of 2025, plus 3,347,408 internally displaced people. The refugee and asylum-seeker total is this site's sum of UNHCR country-of-asylum rows (UNHCR Refugee Data). Somalia has a population of about 19.7 million (World Bank), so internally displaced people alone are roughly one in six residents (site calculation). A different figure of 325,744 Somali refugees abroad turned up in a search summary of a UNHCR page; it matches Kenya's count only and conflicts with the country-by-country total, so it is not used.

The internal displacement count was 3.3 million at the end of 2025 and again at 30 June 2026; a figure of 3.1 million was cited for the 2022 drought (see above).

Where do Somali refugees live?

About 71% of Somali refugees are in Kenya and Ethiopia (637,350 of 892,037), and the largest European host is Germany with 41,383. UNHCR counts by country of asylum at the end of 2025 (UNHCR Refugee Data):

Current refugee numbers in Europe, North America and Australia are far smaller than the Somali-linked populations there, because many arrived decades ago and have since naturalised, had children, or are counted in other categories. For those populations see Somalis in Europe and Somali Americans. The 2011 to 2020 US refugee arrivals from Somalia are also on the latter page.

Why do so many Somali refugees stay in Kenya and Ethiopia?

Neighbouring countries are the nearest places of asylum, and the camps and cities there host more than 637,000 Somali refugees. Kenya has the largest number, in Dadaab, Kakuma and Nairobi, with 319,471 refugees and a further 139,660 asylum-seekers at the end of 2025 (UNHCR). Ethiopia has 317,879 refugees and 43,993 asylum-seekers. During the 2011 famine, the more than 920,000 Somali refugees in neighbouring countries were mainly in these two.

Kenya and Ethiopia are also first-asylum countries for people who later moved on. The 2021 Canadian census shows more people reporting Somali ethnic origin (65,555) than were born in Somalia (34,120), partly because many were born in Kenya, Ethiopia or other countries of first asylum (Statistics Canada).

How important are remittances to Somalia?

No verified primary figure was found, so none is given. The economy is widely described as dependent on money sent by the diaspora, but the World Bank's personal-remittances indicator returned no value for Somalia (World Bank), and the country overview gives no remittance number. The denominator for any share-of-GDP claim would be GDP of about US$13.0 billion in 2025 (World Bank).

Claims about remittance volumes should be checked against World Bank, IMF or KNOMAD publications. For the unproven claim that Minnesota fraud proceeds reached al-Shabaab, see the fraud page.

What is Somaliland and why does it matter for migration?

Somaliland declared independence on 18 May 1991 after the Barre government collapsed and governs the north-west from Hargeisa, but Somalia treats it as a federal member state. It had earlier been briefly independent in June 1960 (Wikipedia). The same page says Israel became on 26 December 2025 the first UN member state to recognise it formally; this was not verified against a government source. The page also gives a population estimate of about 6.2 million for 2024 from local media, which is not an official census figure.

Somaliland matters to the migration story because many Somali migrants in Europe, including some elected officials, come from the northern regions. Sheffield's former Lord Mayor Magid Magid, for example, was born in Burao (Wikipedia). The migration data in this section are by country of birth, so people from Somaliland are generally recorded under Somalia.

What are conditions for Somali refugees who might return?

Conditions are mixed: parts of Somalia remain under al-Shabaab control, millions are displaced, and the World Bank reports slowing growth, so returns depend on both safety and the willingness of Somali authorities to accept nationals. UNHCR counts 3.3 million internally displaced people and 511,797 new internal displacements in the first quarter of 2026 alone (UNHCR). Somalia itself hosted 32,966 refugees and asylum-seekers at 30 June 2026, mostly from Ethiopia and Yemen (UNHCR).

Host governments have drawn different conclusions from these conditions. Refugee organisations such as the Danish Refugee Council argued that permit reviews were premature while al-Shabaab held territory (DR). Denmark withdrew nearly 1,000 Somali permits by October 2018. Across the EU, 7,480 Somali citizens were ordered to leave in 2025 and about 595 returned (Eurostat). In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security said in January 2026 that conditions in Somalia had improved when it ended Temporary Protected Status, and it gave no supporting data in its release (DHS). Details are in the Europe and federal actions pages.

What do these numbers not tell us?

They do not separate reasons for leaving, and a refugee count is not a count of everyone who migrated. UNHCR statistics count people currently recognised as refugees or asylum-seekers, not those who have naturalised, moved on or arrived through family reunification. Casualty and fighter-number ranges above are estimates, and several figures (the 2011 death toll, the 2022 drought deaths, Somaliland's recognition and population) rest on secondary reports. Individual reasons for migration are mixed, and surveys of motives were not part of this research.

Related pages

• Somali communities overview
• Somali Americans and Minnesota: population and outcomes
• Minnesota fraud cases and Feeding Our Future
• TPS, travel ban and Operation Metro Surge
• Al-Shabaab recruitment and terrorism cases
• Somalis in Europe
• Why Somalis migrate: Somalia
• United States immigration
• Europe immigration
• Frequently asked questions