People who fled violence in Ethiopia gather in Moyale, Kenya, in a photo released by UNHCR Kenya on October 29, 2026. Photo: UNHCR Kenya (@UNHCR_Kenya) via X
About 50,000 people have crossed from Ethiopia into Kenya to escape fighting in the border town of Moyale, UN agencies said on Thursday, as they appealed for $8.9 million to help them.
"At least 50,000 people have fled violence in Ethiopia into Kenya, according to county authorities," the UN refugee agency's Kenya office (@UNHCR_Kenya) said on X. UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) are seeking the money to provide life saving assistance in Moyale, it said.
The agencies warned that the figure could rise further. Nomagugu Ncube, the IOM's chief in Kenya, told BBC Amharic that "thousands of people have crossed into Kenya, and most of them are sheltering with local communities. As the situation is fluid, more people may arrive in the coming days," in Mereja's translation of the BBC Amharic report.
As of Thursday, October 29, 50,000 people had been recorded arriving in Moyale town in Kenya's Marsabit County, the IOM said, according to BBC Amharic. Some are staying with families in border communities, while others are housed at five temporary sites. The IOM said the number is still a preliminary estimate and may change as more information comes in. The Kenyan government and its humanitarian partners are preparing an aid plan for up to 80,000 people, because conditions on the Ethiopian side remain unstable, BBC Amharic reported.
Many of those fleeing are women and children, said UNHCR's representative in Kenya, Fatima Mohammed-Cole. Some are staying with relatives and host communities, while others have sheltered in schools and churches, and food is the most urgent need, followed by safe drinking water, emergency shelter, sanitation and health care, she said in a statement. UNHCR is mobilizing relief supplies for nearly 12,000 people and is working with the authorities to find safer places to stay farther from the border, the agency said. The joint appeal is meant to cover up to 50,000 people for the next three months.
People were still arriving on Friday. Sporadic gunfire could be heard from the Ethiopian side of Moyale, and cargo trucks were stranded on both sides of the border, an Associated Press reporter in the Kenyan town said. Malik Adan, who heads the Kenya Red Cross Society in the Upper Eastern region, told the Daily Nation that more people were arriving in Moyale town while others remained in the camps.
The French language news account TopAfrica (@TopAfricaMedias) noted that the arrivals have been counted since October 22 and that the total is provisional. The Swahili account of JamiiForums Kenya (@JamiiForums_KE) also stressed that most of those who crossed are women and children. Fighting in Moyale also pushed thousands of people into Kenya in 2012 and in 2018, according to a UN humanitarian update.
The fighting in Ethiopian Moyale started on October 18, according to the UN humanitarian flash update, in a long running dispute between communities linked to the Oromia and Somali regions, which both claim parts of the town. Moyale is divided between Ethiopia and Kenya and is one of the main trade crossings between the two countries.
DW Amharic reported this week that unrest was continuing in Moyale and that residents had called for the federal government to intervene. The Oromo Federalist Congress, an opposition party, criticized what it called the federal government's "silence" on the clashes, BBC Amharic reported. The United States Embassy in Addis Ababa said on Wednesday that the fighting in Moyale "now seems calm" but that the overall security situation could change at any time, according to DW Amharic. Addis Standard's Amharic service reported on Friday that the fighting, now in its ninth day, had disrupted electricity, transport and schools in the town.
Accounts on X traded blame on Friday, and Mereja could not verify their claims. The account @Darweshmoham said Oromia regional special police were firing heavy weapons into a Somali neighborhood of Moyale, while the legal scholar Tsegaye Ararssa (@RArarssa) questioned claims that Borana Oromos started the fighting, noting that Somali regional forces had been in the town.
Ethiopia's federal government and the two regional governments have not announced a death toll from the Moyale fighting.
The money would pay for food, shelter, water and sanitation, registration and protection services, including for children, UNHCR said.