Few months ago, I wrote about a fieldtrip to Boroma, a city close to the border to Ethiopia. On the way to there, we passed an area with thousands of tents like the ones shown in the picture above.One could see that they had been set up in a rapid way, without putting much effort on stability or durability. But what made me perplex, was the emptyness of the camp. Apart from the tents, which tarpaulins were slightly moved by the wind, there was no movement, no trace of any human being in the entire camp. It offered the picture of a ghost city. Who had set it up? When? And with which purpose in mind? Abandoned as it was, it offered no answer to my questions.
It was only much later, last week, that I found out the history of this awkward place. A man, identifying himself as member of UNHCR, had gone around Boroma and the surrounding villages, telling people about a support that UNHCR is planning to offer to all refugees residing in this area. The condition was to set up a tent in a designated site, and to pay 30$ registration fee. As the camp still witnesses, many persons responded to this offer, being refugees or not.
The whole thing was a scam, and so, all what remains of it are the abandoned tents, while the fraud has long left the country. Sadly, there is very little these people can do to get back their money. Most have most probably not even been genuine refugees, but simply poor families who hoped for some extra food or household items.
