Over the period 2023 – 2025, UNHCR registered over 4 million new displacements across Somalia, with over 1 173 million caused by conflict and insecurity (653 000 in 2023, 290 000 in 2024, and 230 000 in 2025). The rest of the IDP population was displaced predominantly by floods in 2023 and 2024, and by drought in 2025.36
Overall, during the same period (2023-2025), Mogadishu experienced the arrival of about 250 000 new IDPs, and the relocation within city districts of about another 30 000. In the two preceding years (2021-2022), Mogadishu saw the arrival of an additional 500 000 IDPs and the internal relocation of about another 190 000 (mostly in 2021). The period 2017-mid 2018 was also a peak period for internal displacement in Somalia, with sizeable new IDP inflows to Mogadishu (over 200 000) - mostly originating from Lower and Middle Shabelle and triggered by insecurity and drought - and with another 150 000 relocating within the city districts, notably Kahda.37
At the same time, in the period 2021-2025 only about 8 000 IDPs have relocated back to their home areas or outside Mogadishu in the period 2021-2025, mostly to Lower Shabelle and Bari region.38 IDPs settled in urban areas tend to remain there, going back often not being an option due to circumstances in their place of origin (e.g. drought, conflict).39 Also in terms of expressed preferences, recent evidence would suggest that 46 % of the IDPs in Daynile district and 55 % of the IDPs in Kahda district of Mogadishu would prefer to stay. Main grounds for this would be livelihood opportunities, availability of basic services, availability of humanitarian assistance, and an improved security situation relative to their areas of origin.40
Wanting to remain in Mogadishu would be particularly true for those displaced by violence and conflict, including by Al-Shabaab.41 According to a survey conducted by ReDSS in 2021, those displaced by conflict would be more likely to want to stay in their current location in Mogadishu than those displaced by drought or floods.42 At district level, the primary reason they gave for this was the absence of conflict at their current sites.43
- 36
EUAA analysis based on UNHCR, Operational Data Portal, Somalia – Internal Displacement, n.a., url
- 37
i
- 38
EUAA analysis based on UNHCR, Operational Data Portal, Somalia – Internal Displacement, n.a., url
- 39
Refugees International, No Going Back: The New Urban Face of Internal Displacement in Somalia, 25 May 2023, url; The New Humanitarian, ‘There’s no future in this IDP camp’: Why Somalia’s crisis needs a rethink, 17 August 2023, url
- 40
Somalia expert on IDPs reintegration, Email exchange 27, 30 March 2026. The Somalia expert on IDPs reintegration has decades long experience in addressing IDPs issues and facilitating their reintegration in Somalia and in Mogadishu; see also Somalia, FGS, Durable Solutions Progress (DSP) Survey, September 2024, url, pp. 6, 20
- 41
NRC, Community-driven consultations on housing, land and property needs among minority, marginalised, and displaced communities in Mogadishu, December 2024, url, p. 17
- 42
Somalia expert on IDPs reintegration, Email exchange 27, 30 March 2026; see also Re
- 43
Re