An estimated 300,000 Somali immigrants live in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, largely due to a steady flow of asylum seekers
1. Between 1990 and 2015, the total number of people born in Somalia but living outside the country more than doubled, from about 850,000 to 2 million. The share of Somali migrants abroad grew 136 per cent between 1990 and 2015, according to United Nations estimates.
2. The number of Somali refugees displaced by ongoing conflict continues to rise. In 1990, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees estimated that about 470,000 of the total Somali global diaspora (about 55 per cent) was living in a temporary refugee situation. By 2014, that number had grown to 1.1 million — still about 55 per cent of all Somalis living outside of Somalia.
3. Even though refugee camps are meant to be temporary, some Somali refugees have lived in camps located in neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia for decades. Almost two-thirds of the global Somali diaspora live in neighbouring countries. At nearly half a million, Kenya hosts the largest number of Somali migrants of any other country.
4. An estimated 300,000 Somali immigrants live in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, largely due to a steady flow of asylum seekers. The EU, Norway and Switzerland are home to 14 per cent of the world’s Somali migrant population.
5. The US Somali immigrant population is among the fastest growing of communities. UN estimates indicate that the total number living in the US was around 2,500 in 1990, but has grown to more than 160,000 by 2017. In all, the US is home to about 7 per cent of the world’s Somali migrant population. Between 2001 and 2017, the US admitted more than 100,000 refugees from Somalia, according to the US Office of Refugee Resettlement.
— Compiled from agencies