ROMA ANDE KALISFERIA – ROMA IN LIMBO
By Ronald Lee
© Ronald Lee, 2002, all rights reserved.
Published in Terre Sospese – Suspended Worlds: A Photo Essay of Romani Refugee Camps in Italy.
Stefano Montesi. Prospettiva Edizioni Srl. Rome. 2002.
———————————————————————————————-
The North-American Vlach-Roma believe there is a place between earth and Heaven, called Kalisferia in Romani, where the souls of unbaptised children, suicide victims and those who have committed crimes against God are condemned to exist in limbo. This is a dismal, fearful region of total darkness inhabited by fearsome creatures that torment those condemned to live there until they receive Grace from God to enter Raiyo, the Romani concept of Heaven. When I entered Camp Casilino 900, a Romani-refugee shanty town of shacks and trailers close to Rome, I found Kalisferia on earth!
Nobody knows how many Romni refugees there are in Italy. Campland: Racial Segregation of Roma in Italy, published by The European Roma Rights Center, Budapest, October 2000, gives one estimate of 130,000 and another of from 90.000 to 110,000. This of course includes the native Italian Sinti and Roma who also live in these camps despite the fact that they are mostly Italian citizens by birth. The Italian government considers all Roma and Sinti to be nomads who must live in segregated camps. They are not allowed to settle and enter mainstream society. Many of the Romani refugees are from Kosovo, Bosnia, Macedonia and other regions of the former Yugoslavia, others are from Rumania. Many have been in these camps for 10, 15, or more years, some for decades. Their children, born in Italy, have known no life but the camps. They cannot apply for Convention-refugee status like Romani refugees in Canada. Few can obtain residence permits and most are unable to obtain work permits. Women must beg on the streets of the cities with their children in order to feed their families. The police have the right to take away their children and place them in foster homes. Nobody knows how many camps there are in Italy. Some are legal others are illegal. The difference is vague and fluid, depending on the whims of local municipal governments. Most of the Roma in the “nomad” camps came from former sedentary Romani communities in the Balkans and were never nomadic. This institutionalised nomadism applied to Roma by the Italian government is a gross violation of human rights.