For the International Day of Migrants, Radio Liberty presented a documentary project “In the eyes of God we are all people” – a film about Roma refugees who found refuge from the war in Moldova, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
A Czech Court sentenced two Roma who took part in a mass fight in Pardubice between Roma and Ukrainians at the beginning of this year’s holidays to 150 and 200 hours of community service. The Ukrainian suspect is not yet sentenced but risks up to two years of prison.
Russia has long been recruiting prisoners, criminals and its own ethnic minorities from different regions into the war against Ukraine. Now they have begun to “engage” other categories of the population – Roma and migrants.
For example, on December 12, in the Leningrad region, 30 to 50 Roma were taken to military registration and enlistment offices. The head of the Sitting Rus’ charity foundation, Olga Romanova, told Channel 24 about this, noting that they would subsequently be sent to the front.
“Being a Roma woman is being a warrior.” Racism is everyday life for Roma. “We are independent, we are strong and we make our dreams come true” – this is how 28-year-old Olena, a lawyer from Ukraine, replied to the question about what Romani women are like. Olena is one of the 6 heroines of the second instalment of the series of portraits of Roma women prepared by the W Torona Dialogu Foundation. The goal of the campaign is clear – it’s time for Roma women to come out of the shadows and talk about themselves on their own terms and in their own words.
A video of a Roma ghetto in Krivoy Roz, near the Dnipropetrovsk region, at one of the largest sewage dumps.
This is bad.
According to the article, roughly 25’000 Roma from Ukraine fled to Poland, and these were overwhelmingly illiterate. This probably means they missed quite of few Roma who did not conform to the stereotypes.
A book on this exodus, called “The War of our Times” was published.
About three to four hundred Ukrainian Roma refugees are housed in a recreation complex in Poręba Wielka, in Poland’s Gorce mountains. The recreation complex belongs to a controversial entrepreneur who is being accused of making money with the refugees.
The people in the regions complain about these Roma refugees and fear that they will be robbed.
Yet another article about the creation of a tent school in a Roma camp in Lviv. These Roma are IDPs and the catholic church created this school. Nice move but what about getting those people to live in decent quarters and also to go to regular schools?
Another article in the Ukrainian press about the tent school set up in a Roma refugee camp by a catholic priest. There are quite a few photos that show the precarity of the camp. Maybe it would be better to lodge these IDPs correctly and send the children to a regular school…
On October 9, the Roman Catholic Church organized a school where both children and adults can study in the Roma camp near the bypass road of Lviv.
This is good, but is also coupled with a strong push to convert, even though the vast majority of Roma there are Orthodox.
82 years ago today, the massacre of Babyn Yar started. It had been preceded by the execution two days earlier of some Jewish and mentally ill patients two days earlier.
The Nazis killed mostly Jews, but also Roma, Russian POWs and many others. The Mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klyshko and the Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky paid homage to the victims.
Unfortunately, another one of those (on both sides). Roma were arrested in Kharkiv region in Ukraine for having swindled pensioneers. They were arrested and will be tried.
The issue as usual is that this is depicted as an ethnic trait.
Bad.
Joanna Talewicz-Kwiatkowska, with her foundation, tried for several months to find an apartment for a family of Roma refugees from Ukraine. No chance. – I never thought I would see such a moment – says the activist with regret. And he emphasizes that the Roma are treated worse than others, even though they are also fleeing from the war.
Apparently, there is a recent influx in Germany of Roma with brand new Ukrainian passports but who also have Hungarian passports asking for asylum. No one seems to know whether they are Ukrainian or Hungarian, and they speak Hungarian.
The most prosaic answer to this is that they are most probably from Transcarpathian Ukraine, and that thanks to the Hungarian Prime Minister, they were able to get a Hungarian passport as Hungarian speakers living abroad. Orban did grant Hungarian citizenship to Hungarian speakers outside of the country since quite a while.
The police in Kharkiv arrested four Roma (the article says it is a “gang”) who robbed and robbed elderly people during the war. The bandits took 1.8 million hryvnias worth of money and property from the homes of the victims.
“The perpetrators came to the homes of the elderly and presented themselves as volunteers distributing humanitarian aid. Under this pretext, the suspects entered the apartments of the victims, after which they stole their property, money and openly robbed,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Roma IDPs in Lviv are getting baptised in the Polish catholic church. They were most probably orthodox prior to this. What is the point?
In Ukraine, among the legal problems faced by Roma, education stands out as a separate topic. About 20% of the adult population of the Roma community have no education and have never attended school as reported by the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights.
As usual, 20% of what …
“Among a number of legal, social, and economic problems, one of the key ones remains the issue of Roma access to education. The educational level of the Roma population in general remains extremely low. According to the latest research by Roma public organizations, about 20% of the adult population do not have any education and have never attended school,” the message reads.
Ukraine launched a renewed vaccination drive against measles, especially amongst Roma in the Uzhhorod region.
A reportage of the mass murder committed by German tropps on Roma during World War Two in the Ukraine.
Roma displaced by the war still have problems with access to the labour market in the Ukraine. According to a study by an international charitable organization, which was conducted in May 2023 among Roma immigrants in the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, and Zakarpattia regions, the situation has improved.
However, there still are integration problems, discrimination, access to the labour market and ensuring the financial independence of immigrant families, information, and children’s access to education. The most difficult situation is in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
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