Dadaab, the world’s biggest refugee camp, is home to a staggering 290,000 refugees, most of whom are from neighbouring Somalia. Up to 7,000 new refugees arrive in the camp every month. They use terms like "hell on earth" to describe the situation in their war-torn homeland. With rebel groups and government forces fighting on the streets of Mogadishu, a worsening drought and a food shortage verging on famine, Somalia now produces more refugees than any other country on earth. UNHCR

By Abdullahi Jamaa, 6 January 2010 Nairobi — A group of young are gathered behind a makeshift structure where they have been living on edge. They have been sitting idle for the some hours. Their discussion returns to poverty, and how to overcome it. Sweat beads on their worried foreheads. Indeed, if there is a poverty-stricken place near Garissa Town, it is Bulla Masalani Village. The sun sets gently, leaving a cloudless sky and the first hints of cool air begin to blow through the thatched houses that make most homes. …  Here in the North, the scale of human trafficking is alarming. “Trafficking of people is very rampant here. It is a multi-million dollar business that is getting bold in much of the Great lakes and Horn of Africa region,” says Mr Abdullahi Hirsi, the executive director of Northern Heritage, a local aid agency in Garissa. “In the past few years alone, because of droughts, we have seen a huge number of economic refugees targeted by human traffickers with a promise of better life elsewhere,” he said. A spot-check in Garissa, Wajir and Mandera shows that the illegal business is conducted daily, final arrangements done in Nairobi. “In Garissa, at least five persons are trafficked in each of the more than 10 buses plying the route to Nairobi. You can imagine the number of people on sale everyday — more than 50,” says an anti-trafficking activist who sought anonymity due to security reasons. “This depicts a completely worrying picture.” …

Kenya: Slave Trade Booms as Poverty Bites