Gypsy houses near Zhlobin to be destroyed before harvest festival (photo)
The settlement run by Gypsies in the village of Lebedzeuka is subject to destruction, because their huts are visible from the Minsk-Homel highway.
Some 20-30 people live in the village of Lebedzeuka. The number includes the elderly, people with disabilities and children. The local authorities are set to demolish a total of eight houses, three of them already destroyed.
The local residents had complained to the State Control Committee. The complaint was forwarded to Homel and then to the Zhlobin ditrict administration where the Gypsies failed to find justice.
Gypsies began to settle in the village some 20-30 years ago. Piotr Alkhouski, chairman of Luksk rural council in the Zhlobin district, says the houses that are now subjected to demolition were built illegally. Nothing is being proposed to the Cypsies instead of the destroyed houses, notes TUT.BY.
Alkhouski insists the Gypsies posses no ownewrship rights for their housing in the village. The residents were warned about a demolition operation back in May. The action was then justified by the fact that the houses were located in the environment-protection area near Dnepr River. Alkhouski describes Gypsies as squatters in the village. The forthcoming harvest festival Dazhynki, funded by the government from the national budget, complicates the situation even further.
The rural council chairman says the local authorities were eager to provide land plots to the Gypsies in other settlements or townships, because no space was available in the village of Lebedzeuka.
Photo: TUT.BY
