Italy: Roma ‘forcibly’ evicted from Rome camp

Police in the Italian capital have cleared a camp housing the minority Roma community despite a European Union court ruling against the eviction.

On Thursday, police removed 450 residents, including dozens of children from Camping River, an officially-sanctioned encampment for the minority group in Rome.

Some residents said police used “unnecessary force” to make them leave their camp where they had resided for years. A Roma woman there said police used pepper spray, hitting a resident in the eyes.

They protested against their eviction by chanting “racists!”

Analysts believe the police action indicate a public trend towards far-right anti-immigration policy in Italy. They say such eviction marks a victory for Matteo Salvini, the Italian interior minister and leader of the far-right League party.

The anti-immigrant minister has long campaigned against the presence of the Roma community.

Salvini’s party has devised a joint government program with the Five Star Movement, to which the Rome mayor belongs.

The program includes a plan for all “unregistered” Roma camps to be closed down.

“Finally, the eviction at the Camping River Roma camp in Rome is underway. Legality, order and respect before everything!” Salvini wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had asked the Italian authorities to halt the eviction and wait until Friday in order to provide a more detailed rehousing plan.

City officials said they were already delaying the eviction for a year.

City spokesman, Gennaro Barbieri, said only 100 people had accepted offers to move into government reception centers over the past few years.

Mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi wrote on Facebook that the Roma camp, located in Rome’s northern periphery, was closed for hygiene reasons.

Raggi added some of the residents in the camp were not Italian citizens and had been deported in recent months.

While many members of Italy’s sizeable Roma community are of Italian nationality, many living in the camp were from originally Romania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Serbia.

Italian authorities periodically clear out Rome camps on the outskirts of big cities.

SS