Burundian nationals outside the Burundi Embassy with their luggage on September 9, 2026.

📋 Breaking It Down

For 34-year-old Archade Nshimirimana, September 8 began with uncertainty.

Sitting quietly on a bench outside his beauty parlour in Kitengela, the Burundian national stared into the distance, unsure what the latest government directive meant for the life he had spent 11 years building in Kenya.

Nshimirimana arrived in Kenya as a refugee at the age of 26, fleeing his hometown on the outskirts of Bujumbura at the height of civil wars exacerbated by the 2015 election. He travelled by road, registered as a refugee with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and was hosted by a kinsman.

📌 What You Need to Know

“I came into Kenya with a few clothes and a burning ambition,” he said. “I have never gone back to my motherland or met my parents physically. I usually video-call them.”

He started as a barber before enrolling for an eight-month beauty course that enabled him to work at a spa in Nairobi’s central business district, serving middle-class women, both local and foreign.

Archade Nshimirimana, 34, a beauty parlour owner in Kitengela town, on September 8, 2026.

“My business has been doing well and has been able to transform my life and that of my parents back at home. I have always looked forward to expanding to other major towns in the future,” he said.

In the 11 years he has lived in Kenya, Nshimirimana has also found love. He is the Burundian community welfare representative and married a Kenyan woman two years ago.

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📰 Source: Nation Africa