Two decades since the Somali Republic collapsed, the Somali regions are still suffering from chronic political uncertainty, violence and high levels of displacement. Since 2006 protracted regional displacement situations initiated in the 1990s have been overlaid by new crises. This is particularly evident in Kenya, where the number of Somali refugees has nearly trebled since 2006 and the refugee regime is undergoing important institutional change. This article draws on interviews carried out in 2011 in Nairobi and Dadaab, exploring the dynamics of displacement and responses by both policy-makers and refugees, and offers some suggestions regarding emerging and potential policy approaches. The article calls for different broad-based political and humanitarian approaches to tackle the intolerable situations from which people flee in Somalia; improvements in the Kenyan Government’s refugee protection capacity and independent monitoring to ensure refugees’ basic rights and tackle abuses; new thinking on piecemeal, gradual, and developmental approaches to refugee integration; and the maintaining of resettlement as a vital protection tool in a complex crisis.