Inside Dadaab: Aid cuts push young people to risk route to Europe

In one of the world's largest refugee camps, lack of opportunity and the biting reality of international aid cuts are leading more and more young refugees to make the desperate choice of leaving for the dangerous route to Europe.

The Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya was opened in 1992. Some 98% of its 418,000 inhabitants are Somali. Many were born in the camps and have lived their lives here without ever leaving.

"The situation has been strict encampment for refugees which means you come into the camp, you are registered in the camp and you stay in the camp" explains Sarah Muasya, a protection officer with UNHCR, the agency responsible for humanitarian operations in Dadaab.

"All of that kept people in what we would call dependency. It is a warehousing of people. People are here for years upon years now, in the second, third, generation of people just depending on humanitarian aid."

Official employment within the camps is minimal. Some refugees provide services for payment: transport, selling timber for building work or firewood. A small number are able to obtain business licenses and sell food, clothing, and other items.

However, the small amounts of spending money given to refugees has been reduced in most cases and removed entirely in others, leaving less money circulating within the camp economy.

For many years, there were paths out of Dadaab through official resettlement processes and university scholarships, but both of these release valves have tightened in the last year.

Official resettlement of refugees fell globally by more than half in 2025, most notably via the United States.

In 2024, the US took 2,700 refugees living in Kenya and officially resettled them - more than any other country. In 2025, this fell to just 120.

Official routes closed

With official routes now largely closed, many are looking to leave the camp through 'irregular' routes to the opportunity of a better life elsewhere.

"I feel like my dreams are trapped, like, circumstance that are beyond my control, Abdullahi, who has lived in the camp for almost his entire life after fleeing Somalia, told Prime Time.

"This reality is pushing me to make a very painful decision, and that's illegal immigration, you know, just as a possible path to access higher education opportunities abroad."

His parents both died when he was young. He says he will not wait in the camp for the rest of his life to start.

"I know it's not about, you know, chasing an easy life or wealth and luxury. It's the chance, a way of getting a scholarship. I know the risk, the danger it involves, the major one is loss of life."

Sarah Muasya says such an outlook is representative of many in the camps. "Your parents were born in the camp, to parents who are born in the camp, and you have nothing to put to the table, and you're looking at your prospects."

"The chances for resettlement are less than 1%. So, then a young person who has gone to school, they feel disillusioned. They feel, what if I try to make my way through Libya and to Europe?"

The 'northern route’ through Ethiopia, Sudan and into Libya is well-worn and the one most typically used by human traffickers. It’s also one of the most dangerous routes on the planet.

'They will sell your body parts'

Abdullahi says he’s aware of the risks but still considers them worth taking.

"You will travel all the way to Libya, and when you go there, those who are there [may] capture you and if you are not able to pay, then they will finish you and then they will sell your body parts, like the kidneys and the liver. And that's the end of you."

There’s no official data for exactly how many are leaving Dadaab in this way but there are increasing reports of refugees leaving the camps and being captured in Libya or the Sahara Desert by criminal gangs, who then attempt to extort their families.

Ms Muasya says that it is rising steeply in the wake of the aid cuts, and that young people are being lured from the camp with false promises and deadly consequences.

"There are people [who] lure them on phone and then they find ways. You hear people who left their house at night. In the morning, parents wake up and find their young people have left," she said.

"And then they start receiving messages when these young people are in Libya with people demanding money. Since the funding cuts, I can say that it is significantly increased and people are willing to take this risk."

It paints a picture of the exact scenario that Fadumo Dhicis Mursal woke up to just last month. Faduma lives in "the blocks", a tightly squeezed network of makeshift dwellings in Dadaab’s largest area, Hagadera.

Fadumo’s daughter, the eldest of her eight children, didn’t return home and her phone was switched off when she tried to contact her. Several days later, Fadumo’s phone rang.

"We got a call from smugglers from Libya. He said I have to send him money, $18,000 US, or we will slaughter her so now."

She then received a video that shows her daughter face down in a sandy desert, hands chained behind her back. Her daughter is screaming as the person filming whips her with a rod or switch, before forcing her face into the sand with his foot.

Hoping to raise awareness about the problem, Fadumo played the video for us, but cannot look at it herself.

"I can't watch the video, I can’t bear watching it. I don’t know where this beating is happening, they say it is called ‘the blood yard’ but I don’t know where it is."

Fadumo told the caller that she can barely feed herself and that getting this amount of money would be impossible.

"They said they don’t care where I get the money, ‘you have to bring the money or we will kill your daughter,’ and you see how they brutalise her in the video."

The video was sent at the end of May. As of today, Fadumo has no idea whether her daughter is alive or dead. And she’s not the only case.

The past year has seen record numbers of migrants in Libya.

Many parents in the camp have received similar videos of their children being beaten and tortured, with the same demands for money.

Fadumo’s next door neighbour approaches us with a similar video she says she was sent of her own son, who disappeared around the same time this year.

Officials say that it has becoming an increasing problem as resettlement to other countries has dropped.

Jackline Kimathi is responsible for female protection and empowerment with International Rescue Committee.

"We have quite a number of abduction cases in the camp with people being abducted to countries such as Libya and families being asked for ransom," she said, "which is very difficult to address because of our porous borders."

"The community is aware that the US is not taking in people as much as they would, and there is interest in them moving to other countries instead. With resources being strained and resources being strained globally, there is a need to improve resilience for this community so that they're better able to stand on their own feet."

The Kenyan government has a long-term plan, known as The Shirika Plan, to integrate the camp into the wider community, giving the refugees more rights to work and to move freely.

It would essentially dissolve the camp structure of Dadaab, bringing it under the governance of the local municipality and take refugees from dependency to self-reliance through socioeconomic inclusion.

However, cuts to international aid have put this plan in serious jeopardy.

According to Sarah Muasya, as things stand, the UNHCR can barely fulfil its existing mandate in Dadaab."The money, when it was cut drastically in 2025, it affected our ability to deliver the mandate first: protection and durable solutions. It affected our partners' ability to support UNHCR to realise this mandate, the government's ability to transition to socioeconomic inclusion. So right now, the Refugees Act and the Shirika Plan are good, but they still remain in paper."

It's understood any such integration is at best many years away, leaving young people in the camp again wonder what their next steps should be.

Conor Wilson and producer/director Isabel Perceval's full report from Dadaab in Kenya featured on the 25 June edition of Prime Time.

The report was produced with funding assistance from the Simon Cumbers Media Fund.