PRIGIONE A CIELO APERTO
Niki and his family are Romanian citizens. They’ve been living in Milan since 1995. In 2007, allowed by Milan’s City Hall, they moved to two containers in the “nomad camp” in via Triboniano, right by the Maggiore Cemetery.
Since January of the same year, life in the camp has been regulated by a decree issued by the prefect of Milan - named “superintendent to the vagrant emergency in Lombardy”- which envisages the expulsion of the entire family from the container in the case of any member committing a crime, no matter what it is. A crackdown with immediate effect. That’s why one of Niki’s sons, for a few euros’ theft in a supermarket, has to spend five months in jail and 20 months later all the members of his family living in the same container – including two pregnant women and two children - are forced to immediately leave their home. The youngest child was sent back to live in Romania with relatives, and the others live in six in a small camper-van donated to them by an Italian doctor. The decree also denies them a place in another camp, and they fear the camper could be taken away anytime by the police overlooking via Triboniano. Lacking any source of heating but each other’s bodies, the winter cold gets harsher every night and their lives are tormented by the thought they might never get to see another day.
Niki’s case is nothing but the tip of the iceberg, though. The clearings policy implemented by Moratti’s council – against all the efforts of voluntary associations operating in Milan - not only doesn’t work against criminality in the camps, but it also worsens the condition for the whole Roma population, including women and children, as it doesn’t offer a real alternative. Roma families suffer and find shelter elsewhere. They move, but still exist, in spite of those who wish to see them disappear from the face of the city.
