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Ismail Einashe

Award-winning journalist and writer
  • About
  • Selected Reporting
  • Selected Features
  • Non-English Reporting
  • STRANGERS
  • Media and Speaking
  • Contact

Featured
The Guardian: A moment that changed me: I arrived in London as a child refugee — and discovered a strange new world
February 12, 2025
The Guardian: A moment that changed me: I arrived in London as a child refugee — and discovered a strange new world
February 12, 2025

The city sometimes felt achingly lonely. But after seeing my first escalator, trying salt and vinegar crisps and watching an East 17 video on repeat, I began to find my way

February 12, 2025
BBC News: Kenya's celebrated coffee under threat as farmers hit by climate change
December 30, 2024
BBC News: Kenya's celebrated coffee under threat as farmers hit by climate change
December 30, 2024

Growers find that the changing climate is having a big impact on the size of their harvests

December 30, 2024
BBC News: Artists imagine a new utopia for Kenya's capital
November 30, 2024
BBC News: Artists imagine a new utopia for Kenya's capital
November 30, 2024

Creatives in Nairobi unleash their imaginations in an effort to inspire a new future for the city

November 30, 2024
BBC News: Toiling on a Kenyan flower farm to send fresh roses to Europe
September 26, 2024
BBC News: Toiling on a Kenyan flower farm to send fresh roses to Europe
September 26, 2024

How farmworkers toil to export roses to Europe

September 26, 2024
Foreign Policy: How Starmer Can Fix Britain’s Toxic Immigration Policy
August 30, 2024
Foreign Policy: How Starmer Can Fix Britain’s Toxic Immigration Policy
August 30, 2024

The Labour Party must not be blown off course by recent riots and far-right agitation

August 30, 2024
Tank Magazine: “I can now give freely. I call it a blessing”
August 25, 2024
Tank Magazine: “I can now give freely. I call it a blessing”
August 25, 2024

An interview with Leilah Babirye

August 25, 2024
The Guardian:  ‘Anything can be edible’: how Italians are making a meal of invasive crabs
June 10, 2024
The Guardian: ‘Anything can be edible’: how Italians are making a meal of invasive crabs
June 10, 2024

Blue crabs with no natural predators have been disrupting prized shellfish populations on Italy’s coast. So revenge is on the menu

June 10, 2024
Tank Magazine: I allow myself to see
April 29, 2024
Tank Magazine: I allow myself to see
April 29, 2024

An interview with Ian Mwesiga

April 29, 2024
Tate Etc: The Beautiful Blue
February 13, 2024
Tate Etc: The Beautiful Blue
February 13, 2024

Miriam Cahn’s painting counters simplistic narratives of the migrant experience and grants the viewer imaginative space to practise empathy, writes Ismail Einashe

February 13, 2024
BBC News: Sudan war: Heavy hearts for the artists painting the pain of conflict
December 27, 2023
BBC News: Sudan war: Heavy hearts for the artists painting the pain of conflict
December 27, 2023

Exiled artist Galal Yousif says his work Man With a Heay Heart embodies Sudan’s loss since April

December 27, 2023
BBC News: Africa unmasked at the Tate: The continent through its own lens
July 24, 2023
BBC News: Africa unmasked at the Tate: The continent through its own lens
July 24, 2023

A remarkable new exhibition showcasing contemporary African photography - looking at Africa's past, present and future through the lenses of artists from the continent - has opened in London

July 24, 2023
ArtReview: How Can Art Change the Narrative Around Forced Migration?
July 14, 2023
ArtReview: How Can Art Change the Narrative Around Forced Migration?
July 14, 2023

A personal ode to the role art can play in going beyond the headlines to reclaim the humanity of those affected by global displacement

July 14, 2023
Tank Magazine: After the Mediterranean
June 17, 2023
Tank Magazine: After the Mediterranean
June 17, 2023

A new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Menorca explores the Mediterranean, through bold works that address its contemporary political context, from climate change to colonialism to migration.

June 17, 2023
BBC News: Kenyan farmer: 'I'm afraid that elephants will kill me'
May 13, 2023
BBC News: Kenyan farmer: 'I'm afraid that elephants will kill me'
May 13, 2023

Prolonged drought in southern Kenya has led the giant mammals to encroach on farms to find food

May 13, 2023
BBC News: The Somali funk spirit that has overcome anarchy and exile
January 28, 2023
BBC News: The Somali funk spirit that has overcome anarchy and exile
January 28, 2023

Ismail Einashe considers how important protest music is to the Somali culture of survival.

January 28, 2023
Tate Etc: Beyond the Frame
January 16, 2023
Tate Etc: Beyond the Frame
January 16, 2023

Vanessa Winship’s photographs of the Balkan conflict are a model for humanising depictions of refugees

January 16, 2023
BBC News: Dirty secrets behind Sicily's rich olive pickings
November 12, 2022
BBC News: Dirty secrets behind Sicily's rich olive pickings
November 12, 2022

The African migrants living in squalor and picking produce for gangmasters in Italy

November 12, 2022
BBC News: Migrants' fears over Italy's new far-right prime minister
October 22, 2022
BBC News: Migrants' fears over Italy's new far-right prime minister
October 22, 2022

Ismail Einashe meets migrants on the Italian island of Sicily concerned about the political direction of the incoming government

October 22, 2022
BBC News: The Afro-punk band taking on 'whitewashed' history
October 8, 2022
BBC News: The Afro-punk band taking on 'whitewashed' history
October 8, 2022

Ismail Einashe meets some Kenyan musicians with a cult following who are challenging the status quo

October 8, 2022
BBC News: The designers giving Nairobi a fashionable name
August 30, 2022
BBC News: The designers giving Nairobi a fashionable name
August 30, 2022

Upcycled fashion and high-end tailoring are thriving in the fashion scene of Kenya’s capital

August 30, 2022
BBC News: Incubating Kenya’s coders and tech gurus of the future
August 27, 2022
BBC News: Incubating Kenya’s coders and tech gurus of the future
August 27, 2022

Meeting the mentors who want to develop home-grown talent by teaching children robotics.

August 27, 2022
BBC News: How racism haunts black people in Italy
August 15, 2022
BBC News: How racism haunts black people in Italy
August 15, 2022

Ismail Einashe writes that many black people in Italy feel that racism is not taken seriously.

August 15, 2022
BBC News: The Kenyan café that helps fight discrimination against deaf people
April 5, 2022
BBC News: The Kenyan café that helps fight discrimination against deaf people
April 5, 2022

Ismail Einashe visits a café in Kenya which is trying to change perceptions of people with disabilities

April 5, 2022
BBC News: The African migrants who Italy accuses of people smuggling
March 31, 2022
BBC News: The African migrants who Italy accuses of people smuggling
March 31, 2022

Ismail Einashe meets a young Senegalese man who was accused of people smuggling soon after he survived crossing the Mediterranean Sea

March 31, 2022
BBC News: What a Greek tragedy teaches us about modern migration
December 28, 2021
BBC News: What a Greek tragedy teaches us about modern migration
December 28, 2021


Ismail Einashe attends a classic drama seeking to overturn prejudices on the Italian island of Sicily, now home to many African migrants

December 28, 2021
BBC News: How Bangladeshis are lured into slavery in Libya
December 8, 2021
BBC News: How Bangladeshis are lured into slavery in Libya
December 8, 2021

A 19-year-old tells of his harrowing ordeal at the hands of traffickers who tricked him and his parents

December 8, 2021
BBC News: The African migrants running a food bank in Sicily
November 11, 2021
BBC News: The African migrants running a food bank in Sicily
November 11, 2021

Ismail Einashe looks at how African migrants are helping each other on the Italian island of Sicily

November 11, 2021
BBC News: How Somali women are breaking tradition to write novels
October 9, 2021
BBC News: How Somali women are breaking tradition to write novels
October 9, 2021

Ismail Einashe considers how Somalia's story-telling tradition has changed since the civil war

October 9, 2021
BBC News: The wonders of Somali cuisine and a taste of home
September 26, 2021
BBC News: The wonders of Somali cuisine and a taste of home
September 26, 2021

Ismail Einashe considers the importance of food for those forced to flee their homes

September 26, 2021
Frieze: The Troubled History of Quarantine Ships
August 25, 2021
Frieze: The Troubled History of Quarantine Ships
August 25, 2021

Jostling cruise ships, migrant dinghies and quarantine boats in the Mediterranean show how much COVID-19 heightened an existing crisis of belonging in Europe

August 25, 2021