The importance of remittances for Somali refugees

Somalia’s break-up in the early 1990s led to some 120 000 Somalis living in three refugee camps around the remote north-eastern Kenyan town of Dadaab. Many survive the harsh conditions due to money they receive from relatives across the globe. The strength of these remittance networks, and refugees’ traditional strategies for dealing with instability, suggests the need to rethink stereotypes of refugees as passive or keen to return to a single home locality.