{"id":236588,"date":"2026-06-17T16:28:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/east-africa\/kenya\/kenya-wants-to-close-refugee-camps-the-promise-and-risks-of-its-ambitious-new-plan\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:28:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:28:06","slug":"kenya-wants-to-close-refugee-camps-the-promise-and-risks-of-its-ambitious-new-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/east-africa\/kenya\/kenya-wants-to-close-refugee-camps-the-promise-and-risks-of-its-ambitious-new-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya Wants to Close Refugee Camps &#8211; the Promise and Risks of Its Ambitious New Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"23\">Kenya hosts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unhcr.org\/refugee-statistics\/data-summaries?data_summaries%5Bregion%5D=&amp;data_summaries%5Bcountry%5D=99&amp;data_summaries%5BwithinFrom%5D=within&amp;data_summaries%5Bview%5D=population_totals&amp;data_summaries%5Byear%5D=2025&amp;data_summaries%5BpopType%5D=FDP&amp;data_summaries%5B_mode%5D=country&amp;data_summaries%5B_token%5D=82982d7b124c26e46821.M_OUijq2otLRC3EPWQT1hSe-NHLToaAp55RQ7gk-Tns.ZpjsyVvkyKC3bTdDEW2y7nPHehOK28R6l9g8g25dBBpUmcD5CPzRk6FkKA&amp;data_summaries%5Bsubmit%5D=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nearly a million refugees<\/a>, mainly from South Sudan and Somalia. Many of them have been living in refugee camps for decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"45\">Now, the country is attempting a major shift in refugee policy. The Kenyan government and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) developed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unhcr.org\/ke\/media\/about-shirika-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shirika Plan<\/a>, launching it in <a href=\"https:\/\/refugee.go.ke\/government-launches-shirika-plan-enhance-refugee-and-host-communities-inclusion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">March 2025<\/a>. The policy aims to move refugees away from long-term encampment and integrate them in society.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"29\">Drawing on their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polmig.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">research<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/osnadocs.ub.uni-osnabrueck.de\/bitstream\/urn:nbn:de:gbv:700-202105064346\/6\/IMIS_WP10_Kenyan_Refugee_Protection.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">refugee governance<\/a> and migration in Kenya, Edwin&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202606170320.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 East Africa <a title=\"Kenya\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/east-africa\/kenya\/\">Kenya<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kenya hosts nearly a million refugees, mainly from South Sudan and Somalia. Many of them have been living in refugee camps for decades. Now, the country is attempting a major shift in refugee policy. The Kenyan government and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) developed the Shirika Plan, launching it in March 2025. The policy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":236589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[258,256,24987,5170,6748,4688,430,257,7586,11903,6765,7349,254],"class_list":["post-236588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kenya","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-ambitious","tag-camps","tag-close","tag-kenya","tag-kenya-news","tag-news","tag-plan","tag-promise","tag-refugee","tag-risks","tag-south-africa-today"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}