Somalis in the United Kingdom
Somalis in the United Kingdom include British citizens and residents born in or with ancestors from Somalia. The United Kingdom is home to the largest Somali community in Europe, with 109,567 Somali-born immigrants residing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland at the time of the 2021 census and 1,313 in Scotland at the time of its 2022 census. The majority of these live in England, with the largest number found in London. Smaller Somali communities exist in Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Leicester, Sheffield, Cardiff, Liverpool, Milton Keynes and Slough.
The earliest Somali immigrants in the UK were lascars and merchants who arrived in the 19th century. A second small group of seamen came during the Second World War with the Royal Navy from the British Somaliland. During the 1980s and 1990s, the civil war in Somalia led to a large number of Somali immigrants, comprising the majority of the current Somali population in the UK.
British Somalis are one of the largest Muslim communities in the UK.
Notable British Somalis include notable sports figures, filmmakers, activists and local politicians. They have also established business networks and media organisations.
History and settlement
The Somali community in the UK includes British citizens, refugees, asylum seekers, persons granted exceptional leave to remain, irregular migrants, and Somalis who have moved to Britain after being granted refugee status in other European states. Most Somalia-born residents in England and Wales hold a UK passport.According to the 2011 Census, 36 per cent of Somali-born residents of England and Wales arrived in the UK during the 1990s. The majority arrived after 2001, with around 25 per cent arriving between 2001 and 2003.
Early migration
The United Kingdom has historically been tied closely to Somaliland through its involvement in the British Somaliland protectorate. This link has given rise to a long tradition of Somali migration to the United Kingdom. Mobility has played an important part in Somali culture. The first Somali immigrants were seamen and merchants who settled in port cities in the late 19th century, mainly in Cardiff, Liverpool and London. The Isaaqs were among the first Somalis to arrive in the United Kingdom in the 1880s. Many of these early sailors came from British Somaliland and worked in the thriving docks. In Cardiff, many lived in boarding houses run by other Somalis. Along with Yemeni seamen, these Somali sailors were among the lascars from the Arab world that were working in the British shipping industry. Following race riots in Cardiff and other cities in 1919, around 600 of the Somali, Egyptian and other residents from the Arab world were evacuated to their home countries. Similar disturbances occurred in Salford in 1921 and South Shields in 1930. Somalis are recorded as living in London back to 1914, having been recruited to fight in the First World War.One of the attractions at the Great Exhibition in Bradford in 1904 was a 'Somali Village' in the city's Lister Park where 57 Somalis lived in a walled compound for six months. Ongoing research is reevaluating what was described at the time as a "living ethnographic display".
A second, small group came during the Second World War with the Royal Navy and stayed in search of employment. They had been recruited as seafarers from parts of the British Empire due to shortages in manpower. Most of these seamen considered their stay in the UK as temporary and had left their families behind. As a result of an act of Parliament passed in 1894, until the 1950s, Somali migrants were legally restricted to working in the shipping industry, were paid at rates of 25% below the standard workforce rate, and legally required to settle only in towns and cities that were centres of shipping. They were mainly concentrated in Cardiff and South Shields, which in 1938 had 116 and 47 Somalian-born sailors, respectively. Consequently, the resident Arabic-speaking populations were typically known as "Somali" since most of the seamen in these ports came from the regions near the Gulf of Aden. In 1953, there were around 600 Somalis living in the UK. When the British merchant navy started to reduce in size in the 1950s, many of these migrants moved to industrial cities such as Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester, where labour was in great demand. The first Somalis to arrive in Sheffield did so in the 1930s. More arrived between the 1940s and 1960s, particularly to work in the city's steel industry. Somalis also worked in the steel industry in South Wales, taking on physically demanding work that did not appeal to the Welsh workers. In 1952, a Somali man was one of the last people to be hanged in Wales, for the murder of a shopkeeper and moneylender in Butetown, Cardiff. His conviction was quashed in 1998.
By the 1960s, there were still only a few Somali women in the United Kingdom. After the British industry started to experience heavy growth, Somali men brought over their wives and families. Somali women subsequently began establishing community organisations in the cities where they resided, some of which still exist to this day. In the 1960s and 1970s, Somali students from British Somaliland also came to study in Britain. Some chose to remain in the United Kingdom, while others returned to Somalia after graduating. Some long-settled Somalis also returned to Somalia in the 1960s, following the country's independence, though many subsequently moved back to Britain as a result of growing instability during the 1980s.
In 1982, when the British government requisitioned civilian ships for the Falklands War, three British-registered sailors of Somali origin were denied employment on the basis of their race. The industry had been outside of the remit of the 1976 Race Relations Act, and discrimination within the industry was significant. In 1982, 90% of Somali seamen living in Cardiff were unemployed. This was upheld as unlawful by an industrial tribunal and an appeal court, and the case contributed to considerable focus in the media on the issue of discrimination in the shipping industry.
Refugees and asylum seekers
During the 1980s and 1990s, the civil war in Somalia led to a large number of Somali immigrants, comprising the majority of the current Somali population in the UK. Between 1988 and 1994, the favoured destination of people fleeing the civil war was Scandinavia, but by 1999 53 per cent of Somali asylum applications in Europe were made in the UK. Many of these asylum seekers had fled from neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia before migrating to the UK. Many of these refugees were women and children whose men had either been killed or had stayed in Somalia to fight, changing the Somali settlement from one of single seamen to that of refugee communities. Between 1985 and 2006, Somalis figured among the top ten largest country of origin groups of people seeking asylum in the UK. In the late 1980s, most of these early migrants were granted refugee status, while those arriving later in the 1990s more often obtained temporary status.Some Somali refugees have also been resettled in the UK under the government's Gateway Protection Programme, which was launched in 2004. Under this scheme, refugees designated as particularly vulnerable by the UNHCR are assessed for eligibility under the 1951 Refugee Convention by the Home Office. If they meet the eligibility criteria they are then brought to the UK and granted indefinite leave to remain. The first Somali refugees to be resettled arrived in 2010, and between 2010 and 2012, a total of 418 Somalis were resettled in the UK. Further numbers of Somalis were resettled under the programme in 2013.
People whose asylum applications have been rejected but who remain in the UK constitute one of a number of categories of irregular immigrants. In 2010, 270 Somalis had their asylum claims rejected in final decisions. The British government has a declared policy of not deporting failed asylum seekers to Somalia as it considers it too dangerous for return, although it has forcibly returned people to regions of the country that are more stable and accessible by air, such as Somaliland. In April 2014 the Home Office issued new advice to its case workers, suggesting that it is now safe to return people to the capital, Mogadishu. In a test case in June 2014, a judge granted an injunction to halt that deportation of a Somali man to Mogadishu. Some Somalis had been returned to Mogadishu prior to the issuance of new guidance, and the returns were subject to criticism from members of the Somali community as well as human rights groups and organisations. Of those Somalis whose asylum claims have been declined or whose temporary status had expired, some have voluntarily repatriated. Many others have been subject to indefinite detention in immigration detention centres.