Kenya's crackdown on foreign traders sparks mass exodus and diplomatic tensions

Ndaikech Ali had spent nine years driving a tuk-tuk through Nairobi's congested streets, and for all that time, he said, the traffic had been his only real problem. The Burundian immigrant found Kenyans welcoming, the work steady enough to survive on. Then, on September 3rd, President William Ruto stood before a gathering of Kenyan traders at state house and announced that all foreign nationals operating small businesses had until September 7th to shut down and leave. The deadline was four days away.

Ali panicked. So did thousands of others—Burundians, Eritreans, Ethiopians, Tanzanians, and migrants from across the East African region who had built lives in Kenya's cities and towns, working as barbers, salon operators, construction workers, motorbike taxi drivers, street vendors, and small-scale traders. The president's words, delivered in a speech about protecting jobs for Kenyans, were interpreted by many not as a regulatory clarification but as an expulsion order. Within days, frightened migrants began flooding toward border crossings, queuing at embassies for travel documents, closing their businesses, and abandoning their homes. Some ended up stranded at the borders. The authorities scrambled to contain the fallout.

The human wreckage was immediate and visible. Families fractured. Ndaikech Ali, like others, faced a choice: stay and lose his income, or leave and abandon his dependents. A Burundian man named Prosper, who had lived in Kenya since 2019 and fathered a child with a Kenyan woman, described the announcement as "very painful"—when he left, he was forced to leave his family behind. In Nairobi's low-income Majengo neighborhood, a Kenyan woman named Grace Wamaitha watched her Burundian husband depart the day after the directive. She was left alone with five children, no second income, and no clear way to pay school fees. She took on extra work washing clothes and pleaded publicly for him to return. "Now he's gone, who will help me pay school fees? I don't know what to do," she told the BBC.

The crackdown also triggered a diplomatic crisis. Burundi's foreign affairs minister warned that "hate speech against Burundi" could have consequences for Kenyans living abroad. Kenya's foreign affairs official Korir Sing'Oei was dispatched to the Burundian embassy in Nairobi to apologize and assure migrants of protection from violence. The government insisted the policy was not xenophobic but rather aimed at ensuring foreign nationals complied with local employment and business registration laws. Within the East African Community—a regional bloc of eight countries including Kenya and Burundi—free movement is permitted, though employment and long-term residence technically require permits. Kenya also recognizes the right of refugees to work and operate businesses, provided they obtain proper documentation.

Yet the damage to Kenya's reputation and regional relationships appeared substantial. The government eventually issued a 90-day registration window for undocumented foreign nationals to formalize their status, with the assurance that those registering would be presumed to be living legally during the process. But critics argued the initial announcement had been reckless. Academic Hesbon Owilla told the BBC that Ruto's comments were bound to be misinterpreted, especially by people without proper documentation, and that the communication should have been more diplomatic. "For those not in the audience, people interpreted the president's words as saying: 'We are kicking these guys out,'" Owilla said. Economist Odhiambo Ramogi went further, arguing that the directive was too broad and counterproductive. Kenya earned $56 million in exports to Burundi the previous year alone. Ramogi questioned the logic: "If you got $56m out of a country, why are you worried about a hawker who's just trying to make, say, $200 in a month?"

The president did not stop with small traders. A day after his initial announcement, Ruto ordered India's Tata Chemicals to leave Kenya, claiming the company had not provided sufficient benefits to the local Maasai community in Kajiado county. Tata had been mining soda ash at Lake Magadi for years—a vast, briny expanse where pink flamingos thrive in the algae blooms. The mining operation dated back to 1911 under a British colonial arrangement that had remained largely intact despite decades of disputes between the company and local communities over land and resources.

Ruto, facing re-election next year, sought to counter the backlash. His spokesman released a statement asserting that "Kenya will remain an open, secure and welcoming country, protecting opportunities for its citizens, safeguarding the rights of all persons lawfully within its borders." Civil society groups and ordinary Kenyans had criticized his approach as populist and xenophobic. Yet for those already fleeing—for Ali, for Prosper, for the families being split apart—the clarifications came too late. The initial message had already been received, interpreted, and acted upon. For Lima Kabura, a Nairobi resident whose husband is Tanzanian, the president should have first identified those in the country illegally before issuing any blanket directive. "When they are forced out, I'm left with no work, no business and no husband," she said. The question now was whether Kenya's regional partners and the hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees living within its borders would believe the government's revised assurances.