TURKEY, ISTANBUL / ТУРСКА ,ИНСТАМБУЛ
Continuous Demolitions for Roma
The houses rent by the Roma families, whose former houses in Küçükbakkalköy-İstanbul (Turkey) were also demolished, in Emek neighbourhood of Ataşehir district were demolished. Almost 10 Roma families who subsist on flower-selling and paper-scrap collecting are obliged to live in tents from now on. It's claimed that the houses rent by Roma were demolished on account of the fact that non-Roma residents around complained Roma families to the municipality.
The historical Roma settlement Küçükbakkalköy was evicted with consecutive demolitions which started in 2006. Most of the Roma families who had lived there before the evictions went to the other Roma settlements like Alemdağ Nişantepe, Ümraniye, Sancaktepe, Dudullu around the district or pitched tents wherever it's possible. Ten of them rent booths which built before by non-Roma settlements on an area owned by the municipality in Emek neighbourhood of Ataşehir in 2010. They rent the houses according to formal conditions.
A notification ordering Roma families to leave the houses was sent them in last June. It's claimed that non-Roma residents complained Roma families to municipality and ask them to evict Roma from the district. Then Roma were given only a short time to leave the houses. The owners of the houses were also informed about the situation and the possible demolition. Demolition started in June 30 and continued for three days. Roma families who were not offered any other place in which they can live are trying to live in tents they pitched on the salvage of their former houses. Some of them refuged to their relatives living in the other Roma settlements.
Accepting of compaints of non-Roma residents as a legitimate reason to evict Roma in some current cases of demolitions worry Roma families. Once upon a time they were living together in their own Roma neighbourhoods. However these big Roma settlements were evicted and most of the Roma families have to live closer to non-Roma. So living together with non-Roma is their own chose but obligation. Roma families say that they are not against urban renewal but they hope authorities to be much more sensible about their situation.