Asparuhovo district in Varna, Bulgaria, was the hardest hit area
during the June 2014 floods. The tragedy is enormous; entire streets
and houses have vanished. A total of 14 people were killed,
including 4 children. I visited the area weeks after the disaster
and the scenes remain apocalyptic.
Nikolay Nokolov, a survivor of
the floods, shared with me his uncertainty about the future: "Half
of the roof of my house has fallen apart. The walls of the house are
cracked. I received only an order to leave. The municipality offered
me social housing but I refused because I have two children and
living conditions are very poor.
Asparuhovo is home to a variety of minority groups, including
nearly 1000 Roma and 5000 Millet (Turkish for “people”;
some Roma in Bulgaria consider them to be Roma, but others consider
them to be Turks). The district’s tragedy tells the story not only
of a natural disaster but also of longstanding social segregation in
Bulgaria.
The Blame Game Begins
The amount of rainfall on June 19 was unprecedented. Asparuhovo
was flooded by a one-meter wave of water and mud. There was no way
the 4.5 km-square ravine in Asparuhovo could take so much water. To
make matters worse, over the last decades many houses, most of them
owned by Roma and Millet families, had been built on the ravine,
usually without a permit. The municipality of Varna keeps quiet
about this fact.
Following the flood, the municipality noted that 122 addresses
were affected by the floods and asked families to evacuate their
houses. According to Lili Makaveeva, director of the Roma-led civil
society organization Integro
Association, at least 60 percent of these destroyed houses
belong to the Roma and Millet.
“Are your houses illegal?” journalists repeatedly asked members
of the Roma community on live broadcasts on the most popular TV
channels. It was the “Gypsy tree felling” and “illegally built
houses” that had caused the disaster, they claimed.
“Bulgarians would not enter the mahala,” Roma residents
told me. “Reporters do not come here. Television does not show the
reality of what happens here.”
Such one-sided reports sparked anti-Roma sentiment and shifted
public attention from those who were really responsible: the
Bulgarian government and local authorities. Why had local
authorities allowed for such houses to be built on the ravine? Could
they have prevented this tragedy? The media scapegoated the Roma
instead of highlighting the government’s inability to address the
problems of minority groups in Bulgaria, especially in relation to
housing. Over decades, houses were built outside an industrial plan
and on a dangerous ravine. No one had warned the residents of the
risks.
The Day After
The majority of the Roma and Millet were evacuated and currently
live with relatives or in social housing provided by the Varna
municipality. At the request of the community, the mayor visited the
Roma families for the first time, on June 30. He informed them that
seven houses would be demolished and asked residents to evacuate the
properties immediately. At the time of this writing, three of seven
have already been demolished. Most residents complain about the lack
of timely and regular communication from the municipality.
Like many others, 55-year-old pensioner Ibriam Muharem’s house
was identified for demolition by the municipality but without any
guarantees for its future rebuilding and for his eight-member
family:
The police and excavator came today [June 30] at 11am to
demolish my house. I asked them if they have an official
municipal order, and they said no. So I asked them, ‘Why have
you come to demolish my house?’ The policeman told me to shut
up. I own this house and I have papers for it. I have an ID with
my address, I pay electricity and water but they came to
demolish my house without an official order.
The mayor promised compensation to the residents of the seven
houses: 250 leva for three months’ rent or temporary social
housing.
“I am secure but only for three months; after that I do not know
what I will do,” explains Nikolov, who also received an order to
leave his house. “The mayor said today that he will compensate us,
but we do not have written evidence or an order for what he says.
Tomorrow he can say that he did not promise that.”
Selective Solidarity
“No Bulgarian volunteers came to help us,” says Muharem. “There
is discrimination from the police and local authorities towards us.”
Even though solidarity funds to help the victims were collected
by volunteers throughout the country, it seems that on the ground
victims were not all treated as one. Bulgarian volunteers helped
only the flooded parts where Bulgarians lived. The Roma were forced
to make separate arrangements.
Integro Association and the National Network of Health Mediators
organized Roma volunteers to help the community with water, food,
and clothes. This differential treatment is a consequence of long
years of Roma exclusion and segregation in Bulgaria.
Where Do We Go from Here?
The problem is not over. Bulgarian authorities cannot afford to
wait for another natural disaster to strike before they act. Those
affected require more information in relation to compensation. There
is a risk of more rain and more floods in the coming months. Where
will temporary dwellers move to then? What will happen to those with
houses in the ravine?
The floods in Bulgaria exposed in a dramatic way the decades-old,
unsustainable housing conditions of the Roma communities. Yet the
government has put forward no plan to address this. And without
efforts to deal with the issue of segregated housing, further
disasters and even deaths may continue.
Source:
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org
