Milan, November 6th, 2009. For the last three years the City of Milan has been carrying out a terrifying and well-documented sequence of ethnic cleansing measures against the Roma people, a situation which has led to many deaths, to a terrible exodus and humanitarian crisis.

EveryOne Group and other humanitarian organisations have tried to rescue as many families as possible, with their own resources and thanks to several countries in the European Union who have offered the fleeing Roma shelter.

The recent clearance of  Cascina Bareggiate has thrown dozens of families out onto the street, leaving them homeless, marginalized and often in precarious health or suffering from serious illnesses. Unfortunately, these persecutory policies being carried out by intolerant political parties have received no criticism or protests from the so-called “progressive” parties, and in some cases they have even collaborated in these inhuman measures.

The European Union, despite the alarm given by the former MEP Viktoria Mohasci (who, incredibly was not even proposed as a candidate at the last European elections) has not implemented any measures against this racist drift in Italy apart from issuing one resolution and some weak reprimands. EveryOne Group – in collaboration with the Italian anti-racist network – is appealing to the European institutions to send for Roma witnesses of this persecution, so that the deaths, abuse and suffering is not treated with indifference. But we are also asking the European Union to finally speak out against these crimes and carry out effective measures to prevent this latest shameful operation against the few Roma citizens remaining on Italian soil.

The time has now come for the Milanese authorities to launch a final attack on Milan’s oldest Roma settlement, the Triboniano camp, already the target of all kinds of persecutory measures and subjected to a “Legality Pact” with regulations identical to those imposed in the Polish ghettoes during the Nazi period. Let us defend the human lives and dignity of a people!

The Triboniano camp stands on land that will be used in the planning of the structures to be used for “Expo Milano 2015” and the only alternative offered to the camp’s inhabitants last week by Councillor Mojoli was the suggestion to rent (at their own expense) a home or apply for an “easy term” mortgage.

This, however, is valid only for those with a wage packet, or rather 8% of the Roma people in the camp. The others, who have lived in the settlement for many years, and who have already been subjected to a long persecution campaign, will have to abandon the camp without any assistance, any homeland to return to, and without a shelter over their heads to protect them from racial violence, hunger and disease.

Time is running out to protest against this unfair treatment because the final clearance is programmed for the spring of 2010.

EveryOne Group will be sending MEPs, journalists and institutional figures of the EU some documents, witness accounts and reports on the terrible persecution the Roma people in Milan and Italy are subjected to.

A persecution which has taken place among the indifference of a Europe distracted by other matters, but which has led to a drastic reduction in the number of Roma citizens in Italy - from 160/170,000 in 2006, to less than  45,000 in 2009.
The principal cause of this decimation has been racial hatred, which has led to many violent deaths, a drastic fall in the Romas’ average life span, brutal camp clearances and a mass exodus of desperate people.

In the photographs: Viktória Mohácsi, Police at the Triboniano Camp in Milano