KIUNGA, Kenya — On a sliver of Kenya’s northern coast, just 15 kilometers from the Somalia border and within sight of the turquoise shallows of the Kiunga Marine National Reserve, a different kind of refugee story has been unfolding for more than three decades. It’s a story without tents or barbed wire, without aid convoys or registration queues. In Kiunga, families opened their doors to Somali neighbors fleeing conflict and drought — and kept them open.
A new media release by the Office of the Director Public Service Management & Administration, County Government of Lamu, dated Dec. 17, 2025, frames Kiunga as evidence that refugee integration can be built on custom and character rather than camps and checkpoints. In stark contrast to Kenya’s traditional camp-based approach in places like Dadaab and Kakuma, the county highlights a locally led model that grew organically and without fanfare: host families welcoming newcomers into their homes; communities sharing farmland, fishing grounds, water and work; and a town affirming that dignity is indivisible.
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“Without donor funding and without segregation. This organic, dignity-driven model laid the foundation for peaceful coexistence that continues to thrive today,” the notice reads.
In Kiunga, the principles are deceptively simple. Refugees and hosts are treated equally. Access to land and livelihoods is negotiated and shared. Relief support, when available, is distributed even-handedly. Over time, bonds of trust replaced suspicion. The structure of daily life — planting and harvesting, mending nets, fetching water — bound households together regardless of nationality.
At the center of this story is Shee Kupi Shee, a son of Kiunga with mixed Kenyan-Somali heritage who grew up across these coastal borderlands and then turned the community’s quiet ethic into public practice. His path through government reads like a blueprint for making local wisdom stick.
From 2012 to 2014, Kupi served as an Immigration Officer, where the line between compassion and control is often sharpest. The Lamu County release credits him with using that post to push for humane approaches at the border, advocating procedures that preserved rights while maintaining security.
In 2015 he became a Sub-County Administrator, and with the title came leverage over the nuts and bolts of coexistence. Kupi oversaw equal distribution of relief food, clean water and seeds. He worked to guarantee that both refugees and host families could farm and fish, unlocking the everyday economies that turn presence into belonging.
As Director of Disaster Management and Peacebuilding, he took on the fragile work of coordination. The county says he built trust with security forces, helped synchronize responses when crises hit and kept channels open for cross-border dialogues. In an area where the coastline narrows to inlets and mangroves and the state can feel distant, those interpersonal bridges mattered as much as any formal decree.
Kupi also carried Kiunga’s model into the classroom. After completing a Rotary Peace Fellowship at Bahçeşehir University’s Otto and Fran Walter Peace Centre in Turkey, he developed a Social Cohesion Initiative rooted in what his hometown had already proven. The idea was neither abstract nor imported; it distilled practice into principles that could travel.
The recognition followed. This year, Kenya’s President, Dr. William Ruto, conferred on him the Order of the Grand Warrior (OGW). The International Maritime Rescue Federation honored his search-and-rescue contributions. During Mashujaa Day, Kenya’s celebration of national heroes, he was singled out again. Each award, he said, belonged to the people of Kiunga, the Boni community, refugees and the cross-border communities in Raskamboni, Somalia.
“Kiunga proves that peace does not begin with camps or funding, but with fairness, trust, and shared humanity,” Kupi noted.
Kenya is now preparing to implement the Ushirika Plan, a national program aimed at shifting refugee policy toward greater inclusion. The Lamu County release frames Kiunga as a ready-made benchmark. Rather than starting from scratch or looking abroad, it argues, the state can scale what already works within its own borders, especially in fragile frontier regions where security, livelihoods and identity are tightly intertwined.
What, exactly, makes Kiunga’s approach work? Community leaders and the county offer several recurring elements:
- Household hosting instead of encampment, dissolving stigma at the front door.
- Shared access to land, fishing grounds and water, aligning livelihoods rather than splitting them.
- Equal delivery of relief and services, so assistance knits communities together rather than driving wedges.
- Local officials who translate custom into policy and stand accountable to both hosts and refugees.
- Trusted coordination with security agencies, replacing suspicion with regular contact and clear roles.
- Ongoing cross-border dialogue that addresses risks while preserving social and economic ties.
- Documentation and learning — converting lived experience into a cohesion model that can guide others.
The model is not romantic. Borderlands carry the weight of uncertainty. Droughts now last longer. Markets can sputter. News from just across the frontier can reorder the day. But Kiunga’s experience shows how social contracts are built: through consistent fairness in who gets help, in who gets to fish, in whose children share a classroom or a soccer pitch. The deeper the daily routines, the sturdier the peace.
Its geography has shaped its choices. Kiunga sits at the edge of the Indian Ocean, where life is measured in tides and seasons. The Kiunga Marine National Reserve is headquartered here, and the conservation area is a reminder that scarce resources must be shared to last. That same logic — steward, don’t hoard — runs through the town’s approach to displacement.
The contrast with camp-based models in Dadaab and Kakuma is not meant as a rebuke so much as a revelation. Camps have provided safety and services at scale in moments of acute crisis. But over decades, they can calcify separations. Kiunga’s quiet insistence on integration — without donor funding and without segregation, as the county puts it — offers a complementary path focused on social fabric first, logistics second.
This is where the Ushirika Plan meets the shoreline. Kupi has urged national institutions to benchmark Kiunga’s practice: start where people already share; back local leadership that is trusted on both sides; make policies that reward inclusion; and track the outcomes. If Kenya’s next chapter on refugee policy seeks cohesion rather than containment, one roadmap runs through this small coastal town.
On evenings when the water lies flat and the mangroves gleam, Kiunga’s fishermen mend their nets and swap stories. Some are newcomers, others were born here, but the tide they watch is the same. The town’s lesson is straightforward. Peace is a daily habit kept by neighbors, and policy is strongest when it protects the habits people already practice.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
