SHIMELBA, Ethiopia - There is a settlement in Ethiopia where houses are in high demand, new restaurants and bars open often and nearly 700 people moved in last month alone.
But Shimelba is a refugee camp, not a boom town, and its residents -- exiles from neighbouring Ethiopia whose ranks are swelling at an alarming rate -- are uniformly miserable.
Fears of a new war between the Horn of Africa rivals is raising tensions ahead of a deadline to demarcate their border this month, and many in Shimelba say they were forced to flee.
"People are running because they're afraid they'll be conscripted," says Teases Tsegag, a 23-year-old university graduate from Eritrea who has been at the camp for three years.
"And they're afraid that war will break out again."
Addis Ababa and Asmara fought a 1998-2000 conflict over their disputed frontier that killed an estimated 70,000 people.
As the day nears for them to agree the border while an independent boundary commission shuts up shop in frustration at their lack of progress, the two nations have become engaged in increasingly aggressive sabre-rattling.
That has prompted a fresh influx of refugees to Shimelba, which is now home to some 15,600 people. New arrivals in October more than doubled compared with the same period a year ago.
"NO ONE HAS MONEY"
Many of the latest residents have been wrenched from urban backgrounds in Eritrea, and that gives it an entrepreneurial feel absent from many other refugee settlements across Africa.
Ramshackle bars, kiosks, hairdressers and eating places have all mushroomed "downtown" in the centre of the camp.
There are even makeshift "cinemas" where patrons hide in the gloom from the blazing sun outside, watching action films like Rambo or English Premier League football on satellite TV.
Most of the business owners say they set up their enterprises with remittances sent by relatives living abroad.
"But we don't do well," says Kidane Berhe, who sells stereos, gazing forlornly over the camp's patchwork of scorched brick buildings, rickety wooden shacks and canvas tents.
"Nobody else has money."
About a third of Shimelba's refugees are former Eritrean soldiers, many of whom deserted, and some 3,000 are university students or graduates fleeing forced conscription.
