Older people and those with pre-existing conditions, Doctors and medical staff – you are in the Corona-crisis, the most Vulnerable. A large and special risk group in Europe, the Public speaks but little about the millions of poor Roma. For many of them, especially in Central and South – Eastern Europe, could be in the offing soon, a health and humanitarian disaster.
most of them live under miserable conditions and mostly without possibilities for Hygiene. In addition, many of their informal activities such as scrap and plastic collecting or street trading with foodstuffs, household goods or flowers at the time not to exercise.
Roma organizations are sounding the Alarm
But only the. Many Roma are, in addition to the already widespread anti-Gypsyism, is currently a special stigma to Some countries, such as Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria have taken in addition to the General restrictions on additional measures for Roma settlements – these are preventive quarantine or police cordoned off.
Roma organisations in Europe are alarmed. The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma about fears that “extreme right-wing and nationalist politicians in Central and South – Eastern Europe use the present Corona-crisis in order to justify their racist positions as a government to act and implement”, as it is said in a statement. The Rapporteur for Roma of the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Czech Parliament František Kopřiva, warns: “Instead of trying to protect the Roma by the Corona Virus, a particularly vulnerable group, in addition to heating, some politicians anti-Gypsyism active.”
Particularly vulnerable, Slums
About ten to twelve million Roma in Europe – they are the largest minority on the continent. Almost half of all European Roma lives in seven Central and Southeast European countries: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia. There are also some of the infamous European Slums, such as Lunik IX are found on the outskirts of the Eastern Slovakian city Kosice (Košice), Stolipinovo, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Ferentari in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, or Shuto Orizari, near the Northern Macedonian capital of Skopje.
Together, you and other such settlements that there are large numbers of people live together in a small space. Often families in which three or four generations living together, only one or two rooms available. Except for a few communal taps on the street, there are such settlements usually no running water and no sewer. There are ideal conditions for the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
Although the living conditions of the Roma and the conditions in the shanty towns in all of Central and South-Eastern European countries are widely known, there are in the present Corona-crisis nowhere is the Central action to a flash, and the mass spread of Coronavirus to prevent the like, such as the creation of a better water supply. Željko Jovanović, the head of the Roma program of the Open Society Foundation, warns, however, to neglect the care of the poor Roma more. “So far, the majority of society has ignored the fact that unemployment among Roma is bad for the whole economy and right-wing extremist attacks on the Roma are bad for democracy”, says Jovanović of the DW. “Now it must be clear that the health protection for Roma has direct and immediate consequences for Non-Roma.”
social programs
are strongly In Slovakia, the new law has a conservative-national government, the Problem is now not recognized – however, without a very dubious way to proceed. The head of the government Igor Matovič announced in this week’s mass testing of Roma on the Coronavirus in the first 33 settlements, which on Friday should be started. In particular, people who are recently returned from abroad, should be tested. Be made the Tests by military doctors, accompanied by soldiers. Depending on the test result, the individual residents are to come to state quarantine stations or whole settlements be placed under quarantine.
According to Matovič, the military action was “not a state’s Demonstration of strength,” the only security of the Roma themselves. In this week settled Roma Representative in February, defeated Slovak government, Ábel Ravasz, criticized the action against the news portal Parameter sharp: The use of military stigmatized the Roma, instead of giving you the feeling that the state is your Partner, so Ravasz.
In Romania and Bulgaria, in turn, some of the larger Roma are locked-settlements of the police and Gendarmerie, as many of the residents have returned in recent days from abroad, and also, apparently, in some cases massively against quarantine rules. In the South-Eastern Romanian Țăndărei, for example, where many Roma live, patrolling currently, dozens of masked anti-riot police, the city is on lockdown. Also in Bulgaria the Roma are a sealed-off district in the towns of Nova Zagora, Kazanlak and Sliven. Beyond such police and military measures, the poor and the vulnerable Roma, so far only in a few individual cases, special state aid. In Slovakia several local authorities in Roma settlements were a mobile drinking water supply. In Romania, the mayor of the Transylvanian city of klausenburg (Cluj) left last week, food and hygiene parcels to 300 families who live on the edge of town next to the landfill in Pata Rât.
In Hungary, where especially in the East of the country, many Roma under miserable conditions hausen, the Roma activist and Chairman of the Hungarian Roma Parliament, Aladár Horváth, a special social program for residents of segregated settlements are required. In a Letter to the government and the President of the Republic, he proposed a Nine-point program on crisis management for the poor Roma. “In the ghetto urbanised areas, the residents have no savings, no stocks, there is no medical care, and there is a growing fear that you can no longer give his children to eat,” he writes. A response he received so far.
author: Keno taking place
*The post “Corona-crisis and Roma: The forgotten risk group” is published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
Deutsche Welle
