Nomads, sailors and refugees: a century of Somali migration

The paper argues that the overall geopolitical development from colonialism to the so-called new post cold war world order significantly has structured migration from the Somali region to the West. In order to contextualise Somali migration, the paper briefly goes through the biggest events in Somali history from the turn of the 19th Century: Colonialism, independence, and civil war.

Different cohorts of migrants include nomads and traders crossing African colonial boundaries; sailors and soldiers in the British Royal Navy both during and after colonialism; student and professional migration to the colonial powers, and after independence to the former Eastern bloc up until 1977, and to the West after 1977; oil workers and whitecollar workers to the Gulf; and refugees following the outbreak of civil war in 1988.