THE ROMA PROJECT
Second delivery of firewood (20th of february 2007)
First delivery of firewood (13th of december 2006)
Report on a visit to Novi Pazar
Photos of people who visited the camp
Photos from roma settlements by Marija Simovic
Pictures from the tentcamp, august 2006
The Swedish Committee has helped the people at an informal romasettlement, Batnjik, just outside Novi Pazar in Serbia and Montenegro since 2004. They are all ethnical cleansed romas from Kosovo. We supplied them with second hand clothing, shoes, firewoods, flour, cooking oil and fruits. We also helped them in their contacts with authorities in Serbia.
In the beginning of January 2006 the local Red Cross and UNHCR:s field officer for the area informed us that the people at Batnjik had moved. The chairman for the local Red Cross, Ljiljana Kostic, said that the settlements president had phoned from Subotica - a town in northern Serbia - and that he had said that the romas would return to Batnjik. But the field officer for UNHCR, Miroslav Gutisa, did not belive so. Neither did we. The move seemed to be final since everything had been teared down at the settlement. But we where wrong: In the middle of february the romas returned to Batnjik.
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 Our van at the camp
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 Cardboardboxes from Sweden a
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We don't really know the reason why they left the settlement, but we do know that a little girl had been hit by a car in the camp. She survived but got very bruised. And we know that somebody destroyed the waterpipe some hundred meters from the camp. Somebody also killed two of the settlements guard dogs and people where driving through the settlement throwing glas from the car windows. Many of the kids where running around on their bare feets in the settlement and the risk for infektions in those kind of environments are grave.
We started to build up new contacts at a romasettlement in Kraljevo when it was clear to us that the romas at Batnjik had disapeared. It's important for us to have contact with romas who live in this situation since we know that this is the only way to make them visible in the discussions about human rights. There are about 200 romas living at the settlement in Kraljevo. So far we don't know if they are all from Kosovo or if it is a mixed camp with internal displaced romas and local romas. At our first visit to this camp we found a little girl in a bad condition. This girl have now been to the doctors. We have also found out that none of the people at the settlement are registered. This is something that has to be dealt with.
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 Delivery of secondhand clothing |
Part of the camp |
Romas in general are hardly never the subject in any discussions about human rights, even though they often are the victims for abuse against this rights. Our goal for the romaproject is to help the romas to be seen and heard in order to make way to change their situation. Even if our possibilitys to help is very small it still make a change. Would you like to help us in our work? And/or would you like to visit a romasettlement? Get in touch with our office in Sweden or our office in Serbia. |
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