Roma Exiles from Belgrade Go Hungry in South

Many of the families forced to quit the Serbian capital for Vranje six months ago have been left without jobs, proper roofs over their head, electric power, or running water.

Thirty Roma families moved from an illegal settlement under the Gazela bridge in Belgrade to the outskirts of Vranje six months ago are still living in improvised huts without electricity and running water.

The only access to the improvised settlement in Vranje, some 350 kilometres from Belgrade, is a muddy uphill track. The Roma have had to dig their own stairs out of the soil so they can reach their homes.

The house of Naser Kamberi, 38, his wife, two daughters and son is typical. The bare walls are not plastered, and the roof is made of bits of tin and plastic. His scantily clad children run around outside in the January snow, while the old, torn clothes they wear flap in the wind on a line of strung out wire.

“The children can’t go to school like this; they’re ashamed of not being clean and bathed,” Naser’s wife, Irinka, says. “While we were in Belgrade, they went to school; here they don’t have textbooks, notebooks or pencils.”

Although life was tough in the illegal settlement under the bridge known colloquially as Cardboard City, the community muddled along, doing various odd jobs, and collecting old paper and other waste for recycling.

In remote Vranje, there are no such possibilities. “There are no jobs for us here. Our children are practically starving because we live on charity,” says Naser.

The Belgrade authorities justified their clearance of the illegal settlement, saying they needed to free up the space to reconstruct the bridge. It forms part of European Corridor 10, which passes through the centre of the Serbian capital.

The decision to move the Roma from under the bridge was made in 2007, when the European Investment Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD, approved money for the reconstruction of the bridge on condition that the people camping underneath it were moved.

The Roma were returned to various provincial locations, depending on their previous resident addresses, armed with promises that the local authorities would house them in decent conditions.

Those now stuck in Vranje say they have complained to the Ministry of Labour and Welfare over their current conditions, only to be told that the local authorities were responsible for taking care of them.

Vranje municipal officials claim that more families came to the town than they expected or was planned for, and there is not enough money to provide for everyone.

The three-member family of Dino Kamberovic, 41, is one of those newly arrived families. They received a one-off relocation grant from the government of 140,000 dinars (around 1,500 euros) but the money has now all gone.

“The money disappeared in a minute,” he said. “We didn't have anything and we needed everything; I spent it on food, clothes, heating and school accessories for our ten-year-old son.”

Dino is currently out of a job and the family is surviving on 15,000 dinars a month (around 150 euros) of welfare aid.

Miroslav Iljazovic, 31, and the six members of his family live next door in a windowless, tin-roofed hut. He claims he received only 31,000 dinars (around 300 euros) in welfare in the last six months, which all went on food.

The case of Velija Kamberovic is similar. Though only 20, he is already the father of four children who cling to their father’s legs, demanding food.

“We eat one day and then don’t eat for three,” he says. “It is even more difficult for us because we don’t have running water; the children bathe once a month.”

The Roma from the Gazela bridge have addressed the local authorities and the Ministry of Labour and Welfare on several occasions about their plight but say no one paid them any attention.

The ministry referred them to the town hall but they got a cold shoulder.  The last time a delegation from the community went there in January, security guards threw them out of the building.

Branimir Stojancic, local minister in charge of welfare in Vranje, says more people arrived in Vranje than were registered for relocation to the town. “We had a list of 13 families, and 29 arrived, so 16 families were not registered and we cannot aid those people,” he says.

The authorities are trying to maintain some kind of communication with the new Roma arrivals. On Vasilica, a holiday celebrated by Roma all over the world on January 13, officials handed out free homemade brandy in Gornja Carsija, the Roma settlement.

Naser Kamberi did not appreciate the offer of free alcohol. “We have nothing to eat and yet the authorities have money for brandy!” he exclaims. “I don't need brandy, I need food, clothes, school applications! They could have given at least one New Year's package to the children," he says.
 
Back in Belgrade, the reconstruction of the Gazela bridge has yet to start.  Work is expected to begin this spring.

Goran Antic is a journalist from Vranje. This article was published with the support of the British embassy in Belgrade as part of BIRN's Training and Reporting Project.