Refugees in Kenya

The Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya has a population of 218,873 registered refugees, making it the third-largest displacement camp in the world. Most of the people living in the three camps have fled various conflicts in the broader Eastern Africa region. The majority have come as a consequence of the civil war in southern Somalia as well as due to droughts. The Dadaab refugee camp complex is so vast that it has been compared to a city, with urban features such as high population density, economic activity, and concentration of infrastructure. I visited Dadaab in 2008, when I developed a response strategy for the relief organization CARE International.