It's a form of selection bias the environment in the Gulf creates. Countries like the UAE effectively don't have refugee programs or anything like that. Whatever they do sometimes take in is so low it's pretty much non-existent. The only way you can live in those countries is:
- You own a business or have a significant investment in the country
- You are employed by a legitimate and registered business in the country
- You are employed by the government
That's pretty much it. Only avenues for having a visa. They deport you otherwise and even if you somehow stayed as an illegal it would be a tough life as no high-paying legitimate businesses would hire you and there's no social safety net for non-citizens whatsoever or concepts like homeless shelters. You'd be torturing yourself and pulling off the books slave labor-like wages.
So all the Somalis in the Khaleej, particularly in the UAE, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait which I'm more privy to tend to be either well-off business people, educated working professionals or at least dudes and women who are hustling and working in some way (off the books Somali community taxi-drivers who have another low-paying job, girls who work as housekeepers for Somali households exclusively while pretending to be a niece staying with them etc). Growing up most of the kids I grew up with's parents were cops, doctors, dentists, small-business owners, wealthy business tycoons back in Somalia/Somaliland who wanted their families nearby and the like.
Very different strata of Somali society from refugees in the west.