In the International Day of the Gypsy People held this Thursday, the three associations that work with this group in the province of Alicante recall that the The pandemic has hit them particularly hard. The Roma population has suffered the health crisis plus the poverty that accompanies them in their daily lives.
Alexandrina Moura, president of the association Arakerando; Mercedes Santiago, coordinator of the Gypsy Secretariat Foundation; and Fabiola Moreno, spokesperson for the Federation of Gypsy Associations of Alicante (FAGA), Alicante have reported in Hoy por hoy that it has been “a very tough year”.
From the difficulty confining in houses of a few square meters in which families of up to ten or twelve people live, until the impossibility of obtaining their daily sustenance for the closing of the markets, in which there is not the same flow of clientele now as before the pandemic.
They remember that gypsy families live from day to day and They especially charge against the Alicante City Council for the lack of aid. They regret that they have only received cards or vouchers from supermarkets from the Council for Inclusive Policies directed by Mónica Oltra to buy food. But no help from the local government, which they also reproach for still has not responded to their proposal to celebrate this international day.
“Obviously, the aid has not reached those who collect scrap metal or sell oranges in a corner,” laments Alexandrina Moura, who appreciates the collaboration of citizens and NGOs with inaction of the Alicante City Council.
– Alexandrina Moura and Mercedes Santiago with Carlos Arcaya at the Radio Alicante / Radio Alicante studios
Also shown hurt that the Alicante consistory has not joined the celebrations for this international day as other institutions have done. They assure that have not had a municipal response to his proposal, something that for Mercedes Santiago is “an insult to the gypsy people”.
Above all, after a year in which many gypsy families “they have been hungry”, denounces Santiago, for whom “we are failing as a society.”
Those who have suffered the most are the elderly and children. Now the situation has improved slightly, but there are still “many needs left”. In this sense, they refer to the restrictions in the markets, which mean that the activity is not the same as before the pandemic and that families cannot yet have a livelihood.
At the top of the news you can hear the full interview in Today Alicante.
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