Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Lead poisoning of Rom families in Kosovo

Rachel, of the UK Association of Gypsy Women, reminds me that some 650 Roma families, including 400 children, were settled on a lead-contaminated site in Kosovo by the UNHCR in 1999, and that so far 84 children have died on the site through lead poisoning. Now, the WHO has demanded that the camps be shut down and the inhabitants moved. I’m tabling the following question today:

What steps they will take to assist the World Health Organisation campaign to shut down the lead-contaminated camps at Osterode and Cesmin Lug in Kosovo, and to resettle the Roma inhabitants on uncontaminated land.

There's a petition on the Downing Street website asking the Government to act on this scandalous treatment of the Roma in Kosovo (/petitions.number10.gov.uk/Romachildren. The Roma are an oppressed minority throughout eastern Europe, but deliberately locating these families in a place where they are slowly poisoned is quite intolerable, so please sign it.

No comments: