Back in the late 90s, it was common to see them in the streets of
downtown Buenos Aires. The porteños* were used to
other migration flows, but with astonished looks they wondered how
these strange-looking people, with gipsy attire, dark skin, braided
hair, and speaking an unfamiliar language, would strive to obtain a
coin from them in exchange for the performances of their small
children who played the accordions and who, little by little,
turned their own melodies into tunes more associated with tango and
the local rhythms.

Today, two Romanian families are returning home, together with
their five children, pure little Argentineans, who will go on with
their lives in Europe. Someday someone will remind them about their
place of origin down there in the south; Buenos Aires, a remote and
strange city for them.

But five years have passed since they arrived in Argentina, a
period in which they suffered the drama of daily survival and the
ghost of abandonment at the hands of their countrymen who cheated
and stole from them and promised them a better job 12,000
kilometres from their home. The phantom of trafficking has haunted
the lives of these stranded Romanians.

Organized mendicity in Buenos Aires in the 90s promised to be
profitable at a time when the local currency was 1 peso to 1
dollar. But the promise of easy money fell through with the huge
economic crisis of 2001.

There are plenty of testimonies about the large amount of money
that the Romanian mothers and their children collected on the city
streets in the first years, until (and as a result of the crisis)
those who directed the business vanished along with the good humour
of the porteños.

The families returning with IOM assistance today, as well as
many others who have already left Argentina, were forced to sleep
outdoors, in the squares of Buenos Aires. Other times, they would
take refuge in state-run shelters or a room somewhere if they could
raise some money from working in informal waste collection as
cartoneros,** or by begging.

Meanwhile, the sons and daughters who came to Argentina as kids
are returning as adolescents, never having attended school or
played football, without friends. In some cases, teenage motherhood
thrust them into a new life.

Today they are returning to the town of Cluj in Romania, with
worn-out smiles and the children who were born in Argentina and who
will probably never speak the native language, but who are
testimony of the tough side of life that met them head-on in sunny
Buenos Aires. But they are also returning with the hope that
comes from returning to a familiar place, to the home they left
behind, and the family they have not seen in years and whom they
fear they may not recognize.

IOM’s Humanitarian Assistance Fund for Stranded
Migrants provided support for the return of the 12 members of the
two Romanian families featured in this story. IOM’s Regional
Office in Buenos Aires provided assistance for the voluntary return
before, during and after the trip from Argentina to
Romania.

Elena Solari

IOM Buenos Aires