Nairobi's Little Mogadishu under Siege

Foreign Policy published on 14 April 2015 an article titled "Little Mogadishu, Under Siege" by Amanda Sperber.  The author argues that in the wake of the Garissa University attack, Somalis living in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi are caught between an increasingly indiscriminate al-Shabaab and a heavy-handed Kenyan police force. 

The Somali Factor in Urban Kenya

The Rift Valley Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, published in March 2015 a summary of conference results titled "Eastleigh and Beyond: The Somali Factor in Urban Kenya."  The conference took place in September 2014 in Nairobi.

Key points included the realization that Nairobi's Eastleigh neighborhood hosts one of the largest ethnic Somali communities outside Somalia.  It includes Kenyan Somalis as well as those who have migrated from Somalia.  With the rise of al-Shabaab, Eastleigh's Somalis are now often associated with terrorism.  In 2014, the Kenyan government targeted Eastleigh in a massive security sweep.  Thousands were detained and an estimated 500 were deported. 

Many Kenyans question  the right of Somalis to live outside refugee camps.  Somalis in Eastleigh, many of whom are Kenyan by birth and descent, resist their narrow stereotyping as interlopers in Kenya and as agents of terrorism and continue to assert their right to live and work in the neighborhood.