Roma families displaced from the landfill in Vinča, as part of the project to rehabilitate the landfill and build an incinerator, continue to face human rights violations.
The consequences of the project are the displacement of 17 Roma families who, until 2018, lived in an informal settlement on the edge of the landfill and the loss of the only source of income for those households, which collected secondary raw materials in the area of the former landfill.
After the forced eviction in 2018, those families faced numerous difficulties and obstacles in order to secure a roof over their heads and any income to meet the basic needs of life.
Complaint addressed to EBRD
Faced with the ignoring and passivity of the city authorities in Belgrade, responsible for the implementation of the displacement, the families decided to file a complaint at the end of 2019, with the support of Initiative A 11, to the Independent Mechanism for Project Responsibility of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which financed the reconstruction project landfills.
After submitting a complaint to the EBRD's independent mechanism, a mediation process was initiated between the displaced families represented by Initiative A 11 and the company "Beo chista energija", but also the city of Belgrade, the city of Šabac and the municipality of Vladimirci, the local governments to which the families were resettled according to their place of residence.
The key topics of mediation related to the provision of adequate alternative housing for displaced families, primarily in terms of the area of the allocated housing space that meets the needs of each individual household and the affordability of the offered housing solutions, as well as the restoration of income sources.
Unsolved numerous problems
Legal advisor from the A11 initiative, Nađa Marković, told Vreme that after mediation and signing of the agreement, each of the participating parties undertook to complete the remaining unfinished activities in the coming period, and numerous problems still remain unresolved.
"Some of the families in Vladimirci still live in overcrowded housing whose area is smaller than what the Law on Housing and Building Maintenance prescribes, while families placed in social housing in Belgrade have not fully resolved the issue of accumulated debts for the costs of communal services," she said. Markovic.
There is also a lack of support for families in overcoming difficulties related to current housing costs, and the city of Belgrade has undertaken this obligation, they state from the A11 initiative and add that it is necessary to provide this type of support, bearing in mind that until now almost nothing has been done to restore the income of displaced households it didn't work.
The initiative pointed out that previously, during many years of living and working at the landfill, all families, without exception, lived exclusively from their own work and none of them were dependent on cash social assistance, with the assessment that it is necessary that Belgrade, the municipality of Vladimirci, as well as "Beo cista energy" without delay begin to fulfill the assumed obligations.
