Roma people/Pisa (Italy): racists set fire to squatter camp where the parents of the little girl who died in the fire in Livorno lived
EveryOne Group: “Victor and Elena lacatus have been left to fend for themselves. We are appealing to the tuscan and italian authorities to help them”
EveryOne group is asking the president of tuscany, Claudio Martini, to help the people affected by the fire and appeals to the italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, to take a firm stand against the persecution of the Roma people in Italy
At around 3 p.m. on Saturday July 26th, under Cittadella Bridge (in Pisa, Italy) on the banks of the River Arno, a group of racists set fire to a group of five makeshift huts where several Roma families lived. One of the huts belonged to Victor and Elena Lacatus, the parents of Lenuca Carolea, the little girl who died last year in the now famous “Livorno fire”. Three other children from the Roma ethnic group perished in that fire.
Saturday the flames immediately enveloped the huts destroying all their contents: clothes, a few pieces of furniture and all the families’ personal belongings. “When I arrived from the station I saw the hut where we lived in flames many metres high. Firemen were trying in vain to put the fire out. There was nothing either in my hut or in my neighbours’ that could have started the fire” said Victor Lacatus telling his story yesterday to Nico Grancea, an activist of EveryOne Group, international human rights organization based in Italy. “My thoughts went back to the night when my daughter Lenuca was killed, it was terrible”.
Witnesses Petrica C. and Costica M. told EveryOne that “suddenly hell broke out under Cittadella Bridge. The flames devoured everything with such horrifying intensity”. Other witnesses spoke of “flames bursting out in all five huts at the same time and it only took a few minutes to destroy the whole settlement.”
“It is just a fluke coincidence that no one was in the huts at the time” say the leaders of EveryOne Group, Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau. “All the Romanian Roma in the community effected by the fire have recently received threats and been subjected to episodes of intolerance from Italian racists”. The fire brigade and several police cars rushed to the scene but they were unable to salvage anything from the settlement. “The speed with the flames spread, the fact that the fire broke out in five different huts and the absence of wind would lead us to presume the fire was started deliberately”, continue EveryOne Group. “After describing what had happened to the authorities and informing them of the damage, the Roma families walked away from the scene without being offered any economical, medical or psychological support. Obviously suffering from shock, they set off for the unknown, like the Jews fleeing from the pogroms of last century. After leaving their burnt-out homes behind, the families were unable to find another shelter, and they therefore stopped to sleep in a park. Victor and Elena were among them. Shortly afterwards they were spotted by some police officers who took them to the railway station and forced them to get on a train to be “deported” to Livorno. Once in Livorno they were stopped yet again by the police, who after listening to their story made them get back on the first train to Pisa, where they are now, without any shelter or assistance”, explains Nico Grancea.
“Victor and Elena Lacatus have been through this before, and it is inadmissible that the horrendous story of the Livorno fire has been repeated after less than a year has gone by” say Malini, Pegoraro and Picciau. “They are shattered, they have very little possibility of creating a decent life for themselves and every day they fight for their survival here in Italy. Victor and Lacatus have two other children back in Romania who are staying with friends. They would like to have their children here with them and create a future as a normal family, with a job, schooling for their children, a home - that’s all. All this has been denied them”. Last July 18th Victor and Elena Lacatus had met the Euro MP Viktoria Mohacsi at the Tor di Quinto Roma camp - where they had been officially invited by a delegation of the European Parliament as witnesses of the persecution the Roma people in Italy are subjected to.
Mrs Mohacsi was deeply moved by their story and has promised to take their case to the European Commission. In the meantime”, continue members of EveryOne Group, “we are asking the President of the Tuscany Region, Claudio Martini, who is promoting the “antiracist manifesto” on the Region’s website, and the regional councillors Gianni Salvadori and Enrico Rossi, to help these families, and in particular to provide immediate social integration for Victor and Elena Lacatus, who have suffered in first person the terrible torment of being the innocent victims of racial hatred. We are asking Claudio Martini and all the Tuscan authorities to provide a true demonstration of solidarity and show a real desire to fight racism. We have asked them to meet with these people and our group as soon as possible in order to put an end to a situation that every day that goes by places people’s lives more and more at risk. Our appeal also goes out to the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, asking him to take a firm stand, in the name of democracy, and speak out against this human tragedy - the tragedy of the Roma people – which is unworthy of a civilised country”.
In the photograph, Victor and Elena Lacatus
A press-kit of photographs of Victor and Elena Lacatus is available on the following link:
www.everyonegroup.com/downloads/victor.zip
For further information:
Gruppo EveryOne
Tel: (+ 39) 334-8429527 - (+ 39) 331-3585406
