Roma communities driven from Romania's booming city of Cluj-Napoca say the authorities treat them like human garbage. Pollution from a nearby landfill is damaging their health, say locals.
Yet for the 1,500 Roma people still living here, Pata Rat is very much alive. And so is the environmental hazard on their doorstep. Two "temporary storage" landfills set up beside the old one in 2015 are still growing steadily, and experts say the old waste was never properly dealt with.
Zsiga, her partner and children now live in a three-room apartment in the city. But she hasn't turned her back on Pata Rat. Her siblings and their families still live there, and she's working at the site to support another 30 families who will move in a second stage of the initiative. "I wish that no one is left in Pata Rat," Zsiga says. "No one deserves to live there."
Link: https://www.dw.com/en/living-in-a-sea-of-trash-roma-fight-environmental-racism-in-romania/a-58827229
