Ten-year-old Amina Ahmed is a grade four pupil whose memory of where she used to call home is fading as she continues to remain with her family in Garissa town in Eastern Kenya where she lives in a tented house and wonders what happened to her former home in rural Garissa.
Garissa County has always been one of Kenya\s hottest and driest regions, but there was something different about the 2023 drought. The once bearable grazing lands became cracked, with no water in sight, a symbol of a dying ecosystem. Her family’s goats, cows and camels died leaving them with no source of income.
Amina is one of the tens of thousands of children in Kenya who are increasingly migrating from rural to urban areas to avoid climate threats. Over the past few years, this trend has seen an alarming upsurge. According to a global report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, at the end of 2022, at least 187,000 children in Kenya had to migrate internally due to climate shocks which represents a significant hike from 27,000 displaced children in 2021.
A 2024 report by Save the Children that focused on the situation in Garissa County highlighted that although there are other factors that contribute to this migration, climate change tops the list. The findings indicated that these children and their families migrated from their place of origin due to five main reasons:
- Climate change (98.4%)
- Better economic opportunities (41.4%)
- Conflict and general insecurity (31.5%)
- Lack of social services (19.1%), and
- Seeking medical care (15.8%)
The research conducted in October 2023 involved 425 caregivers (female 71.5%, male 28.5%) and 350 children (female 47.7%, male 52.3%) interviewees.
Amina explained that the migration had not been easy as her friends, family and neighbours had to travel for long distances without shoes and it was insufferably hot. They found shelter in a makeshift settlement, one of many that have sprung up to accommodate climate refugees.
“We experienced suffering, and we could not walk because our feet burned. We did not have shoes, we migrated without shoes. Some of my friends got lumps and enlarged lymph nodes and others could not walk,” she said
The responses from caregivers and children indicate that the major effects of climate change in their lives have been a lack of food and water, and worsening health, particularly among children and the elderly. This is as a result of the prolonged drought and high temperatures that were the worst in a decade. Others have said they were forced to sell their remaining animals that had not died from drought to help them to mitigate the impact of climate shocks.
“We have been nomadic pastoralists all our lives. We raised livestock. We travelled using our camels, fetched water with our donkeys and survived with food products from our dear animals but the drought killed most of our livestock. We came here in a destitute state. During the drought, children became malnourished and thirsty, some stopped going to school,” Amina’s father explained.
As well as families having to move to urban areas, the rural-urban migrants, especially children, are faced with a lack of essential services. The children cited that a lack of quality health services was the biggest challenge they faced, followed by lack of access to clean water and lack of access to quality and inclusive education.
“Since we came here (Garissa township), we have not had access to education, health, and water services as well as job opportunities. However, we have security here,” Amina observed.
“I was eager to learn, but I have not received education as there are no schools here. Even the water we wanted to get, it’s still hard to have access to clean water and it is challenging for us,” she said.
Climate change shocks have not only affected the economic status of households but also the health and psychosocial well-being of people. Children mentioned that their parents do not treat them as affectionately as they previously did due to the stress caused by inadequate resources for the families.
Having migrated, rural-urban migrants still struggle to find employment opportunities with only 13% reporting that they have a better chance of employment compared to their place of origin. Similarly, only 30% reported having better access to basic services.
Only a quarter report that children have better opportunities at their destination while 58% believe there were better opportunities at their rural place of origin.
Despite the very limited access to basic services, many migrants still believe they have benefited from their migration and a large majority of both children and adults think they would prefer to stay in the township rather than return to their place of origin or migrate to another location in Kenya.
“Now that we have rested from water fetching so much, the challenge of accessing water has been reduced, and we are now able to fetch water that we pay for. As girls, we have rested from water fetching back in our place of origin,” Amina commented.
The children interviewed said they were not had not been involved in the decision to migrate and that they had been told to move by their parents and other adults.
Drawing from the findings of the study, Save the Children recommends that government, NGOs, UN agencies, and other organizations work together to provide essential support to the migrants including the provision of shelter, food, non-food items, health, education, clean water, and WASH services.
Furthermore, the government should adopt a comprehensive multi-sectoral approach to climate-induced internal migration by systematically integrating this into national and local development policies, laws, strategies and the plans of various sectors including education, health, WASH, water and energy, women and child affairs.
Finally, to prevent an influx of climate-induced migration, it is recommended that the government and other stakeholders should work together to ensure that climate change-affected households are well supported in their place of origin.
