Large refugee camps have been predominantly unsuccessful, especially in terms of the impact on refugees, host-States, and refugee-host relations. Most of the past discourse examines and evaluates the issues of refugee encampment from the myopic view of the humanitarian aide regime and political actors, excluding the refugees’ own perspective. This limited understanding of encamped refugees hinders both the ability and motivation to make informed, responsible and humane decisions in refugee practice. This paper utilizes a causal model derived from conflict theory as an operational tool to explore, how the structure and process of encampment shape the relations between refugees, UNHCR, and the host-States of Ghana and Tanzania and in light of this, whether encampment contributes to conflict. The comparative cross-cultural case study of Buduburam Refugee Camp and Lukole Refugee Camp analyzes the various perspectives involved in refugee encampment, such as the reasoning behind UNHCR’s methods, the host-States perception of refugees, and the refugees’ own experiences as encamped individuals. The most critical factor contributing to the emergence of conflict between actors in this study is the present ontology of refugees as ‘helpless victims’ and the resulting deprivation of power. The outcome of this study contributes to further understanding of the effects of encampment and segregation on refugees.