Amnesty Urges Romania to End Forced Evictions of Roma

Amnesty International on Wednesday urged the Romanian government to stop forced evictions of Roma, after thousands of them were driven away from their homes over the past years.

"We want to send Prime Minister Victor Ponta a clear message: forced evictions are illegal and must be stopped without delay," Catrinel Motoc, an Amnesty campaigner, told a press conference.

Motoc said Amnesty had collected more than 25,000 signatures in 85 countries on a petition urging Bucharest to observe the right to adequate housing.

"We hear some positive words from the government but what we don't get is evidence of concrete action," Iain Byrne, an Amnesty representative, said.

The petition slams authorities for "leaving evicted people homeless or relocating them to segregated and inadequate locations, next to garbage dumps, sewage works or industrial areas".

"Forced evictions must stop and authorities must understand that we are human beings too even if we are Roma," said Claudia Greta, a young woman who was forced to leave her home in Cluj and moved to an improvised shelter near the northwestern city's dump.

Several hundred people were evicted last year from a shantytown on the outskirts of Baia Mare, in the north, and moved to a former chemical plant.

Last month, 100 Roma including some 60 children were evicted from a town near the Black Sea coast.

After spending three days in a nearby field despite the cold. they were hosted, temporarily, in an old school.

Romania counts one of the largest Roma populations in Europe, their number ranging between 600,000 according to the latest census and two million according to rights groups.