Making Rafha: explaining the establishment of Saudi Arabia’s first and only refugee camp

Abstract This article explores the establishment of the Rafha refugee camp in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the Gulf War, hosting 33,000 Iraqi refugees. The study draws on primary sources from the UNHCR archives and oral history interviews to explain the process leading to the establishment of the camp. The study offers new insights on how the state, and certain interests of a state, are, while highly relevant, not the only factors determining the outcome. Other factors contribute to explaining how the government responded to the particular situation and thus contribute to understanding the variation in approaches to refugee situations, in particular in the case of the Iraqi population in the Rafha refugee camp, the only refugee camp in the history of the Saudi state.