Milan: Ninety-year-old Romani couple evicted and left on the streets after bulldozers destroy their caravan
13 February 2025
Under the supervision of local police and Amsa waste management personnel, bulldozers demolished a caravan belonging to a Romani couple in their nineties, to make way for a dog park. While a local councillor posted a gloating video celebrating the demolition, the elderly couple, Bajro and Haijria, spent the night on the streets.
The eviction took place on 17 January, in what MilanoToday described as “a grotesque mix of bureaucracy, political propaganda and bad management”. The couple had been living in a caravan in a parking lot behind the 14th Century Cascina Torchiera, in the Gallaratese district of Milan. The couple, who first came to Milan when they fled the war in Bosnia back in the 1990s, were originally sleeping in a van, but people from the local community gave them the old caravan to provide the elderly couple better shelter from the elements.
As part of a major municipal redevelopment plan to “bring new life to the neighbourhood”, the parking lot had been scheduled to become a dog park adjacent to the new public gardens. In a so-called ‘anti-decay operation’ of the Municipality of Milan, local police and Amsa took advantage of the couple’s absence to move in with bulldozers to smash the caravan and render it uninhabitable. The couple’s belongings, ID papers and medicines were trashed, and the remains strewn all around.
The local councillor for the Partito Democratico, PD Fabio Galesi, posted a video of the destruction of the couple’s caravan with a celebratory comment: "The redevelopment of the neighbourhood will begin soon", and promised that within two days the carcass would be removed and scrapped. As for Bajro, after spending a night out in the open next to what remained of his caravan, the ninety-year-old took ill and needed to be hospitalised. Officials stated that the couple would be accommodated in a municipal shelter. When MilanoToday followed up, they found the couple were sleeping in a van.
Luca Sechi, president of the non-profit ‘Milano in Azione’, who deplored the ‘ugly words of happiness’ on the councillor’s social media post about the anti-decay operation, explained that the couple were waiting on the municipality to complete the procedures for a residence permit. Luca told MilanoToday “the first intervention should have been to find a housing solution for two elderly and vulnerable people, and then think about clearing the site, because from our point of view the most important thing is to ensure the safety of people’s lives …”
In its 2024 monitoring report on Italy, the Council of Europe body ECRI, repeated its call for authorities to ensure that Roma who may be evicted from their homes enjoy all the guarantees that international standards provide for “in particular, that they are notified of the planned eviction well in advance, benefit from appropriate legal protection, and are not to be evicted without the possibility of being rehoused in decent accommodation.” For Bajro and Haijria – in poor health and vulnerable, not to mention in their nineties – international standards, legal obligations and their right, under Article 8, to respect for their private and family life, counted for absolutely nothing.
