Temperatures were pushing 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius) when we reached the crest of a rocky hill overlooking Ali Addeh, a desolate refugee camp on Djibouti’s southern border with Ethiopia and Somalia. Clumps of dull brown scrub dotted the ochre hills. Nothing stirred.
Once past the guard at the gate, we wound our way through a warren of houses patched together out of sticks, plastic, burlap sacks, and scraps of tarp to a community center where some 40 Eritrean refugees awaited our arrival. Mebrahtu, a camp elder, stood outside to greet us.
Otherwise, the parched dirt streets were empty. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the camp abandoned. As I soon learned, many residents wished it were.
Tucked away in a remote desert valley 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) from the nearest town, the camp was a cul de sac from which there was no easy escape. The guard was there as much to keep people in as to keep intruders out. Some of its 14,000 residents had been there since it opened in 1991.
