court gavel (Photo: Pixabay.com)
The European Court of Human Rights has initiated proceedings for issuing an interim measure against Serbia over a danger of violating the right to life and a ban on inhuman and degrading treatment of the Roma people, living in an informal settlement, Cukaricka Suma, in Belgrade, the Initiative for Economic and Human Rights A11 reported on April 22.
The organization explained that 70 Roma people had been living in the settlement since 1999. Since they had fled Kosovo, the families "have been left to their own devices, living without even the most basic needs met - without water, electricity and any access to regular waste disposal services, surrounded by the woods and in the company of rats as of late."
"In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, when all citizens are appealed to to step up hygiene habits so as to curb the spread of the virus, and protect themselves and their families, the few hundred people living here have no opportunity to do so," the A11 Initiative has warned in a press release.
They said they "have repeatedly appealed" to the Serbian government to take urgent measures to protect the most vulnerable, after which the organization applied to the Court in Strasbourg to issue an interim measure against Serbia. The A11 Initiative argues that under a state of emergency the Court is literally the only instance the citizens of Serbia may apply to, in order to protect their rights.
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