The world of the gypsies is one of the most difficult and complex and above all they are a people who have always been discriminated against. I have been working with them for many years, trying to enter as much as possible into their complicated reality by traveling in Italy and Bosnia. I began being involved with them in 1999 until 2005. Recently, during the pandemic, I approached the universe of the gypsies again and I found them lost, alone, more than before.
When Covid-19 arrived, they were immediately scared and lived days in which they could not leave the camp and had nothing to eat.
The conditions of the gypsies in Rome have worsened since they were transferred outside the inhabited centers. The Castel Romano camp is the largest in the capital and hosts 650 people who live in prefabricated buildings that have become barracks.
There is no electricity or drinking water; they are surrounded by garbage and car wrecks, rats and broken pipes, all in a land that floods and turns into mud with the rain. Many of them live without adequate protection, without medical care. I spent two months watching how any banality became a problem and how children played among the garbage and the total lack of hygiene.