Rome police clear Roma shanty camp

ROME — Police in Rome on Thursday cleared nearly 400 people, including dozens of children, from a shanty camp inhabited for years by members of the minority Roma community, despite a European Union court ruling halting demolition.

Residents stood outside the camp with mattresses and other belongings piled alongside vehicles, some protesting against the move with chants of “Racists!”

Some residents complained that police used force during the eviction. Police commander Antonio Di Maggio denied the claims.

Mayor Virginia Raggi wrote on Facebook that the shantytown, established in a former campground called Camping River on Rome’s northern periphery, was closed for hygiene reasons. Parts of the camp had been without electricity and running water.

She said that the move was meant to provide greater protection to the Roma, especially minors, some of whom do not attend school.

“It is unacceptable to continue to finance places like this that create ghettos, and above all, where the living conditions don’t protect the rights of children, women and men,” Raggi wrote in a Facebook post.

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday asked Italian authorities to suspend action until today and outline plans to rehouse the community, after an appeal by three camp residents. But city officials said they had long been working to relocate residents and had delayed the planned closing by more than a year.

City spokesman Gennaro Barbieri said only 100 had accepted authorities’ offer to move into government reception centers over the past few years, with another 43 joining them Thursday.

Raggi noted that some who were not Italian citizens had returned to their native Romania in recent months.

While many members of Italy’s sizable Roma community, also known as Gypsies, are of Italian nationality, many living in the camp were from Romania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Serbia. Italian authorities periodically clear out squatter camps like Camping River where many live on the outskirts of big cities.