In the northern Hungarian city of Ózd, almost 40 percent of the Romani population live in Kiserdőalja and Hétes, segregated Roma settlements [6]. On a hot day on 3 August 2013, the council of Ózd disconnected 27 pumps providing drinking water. Up to 500 families could no longer easily access safe clean drinking water. A further 62 taps were restricted in use by the authorities with the water pressure so low that it took several minutes to fill a 10-litre bottle. While the majority of the area, located in a depressed area of metallurgical industry in the county of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén in the city Ózd, are Roma, both Roma and non-Roma were affected by the decision, as many people living in the area were too poor to have running water in their homes [3]. To make the situation even worse, according to the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), the Roma were blamed in part for water misuse. [3] Ózd's council did not directly accuse local Roma, but said "residents were wasting water and it could no longer afford to operate pumps and wells". [4]
As a consequence, around 500 families in the Roma settlement have no running water in their homes and they rely on public water supply [3]. The city council’s decision directly targeted the part of town where the Roma community lives, while the council is responsible for ensuring equal access to water as the majority of Roma cannot "afford" to have private water supply in the settlement. [1] [3] Temperatures in northern Hungary can reach 40ºC during summer.
“This is not just about the right to water, it is about the health and safety of Roma families who are forced to spend their days going back and forth to fetch water in extremely high temperatures. The Council is fully aware that many families do not have their own supply of running water" [3]. Although pressure from ERRC and international institutions ultimately forced the authorities in the city of Ózd to restore the public water pumps, the town took an ethnically-motivated decision to completely terminate a crucial public service to the Roma community [1].
When Ózd’s city council shut off the public water pumps, the council's long-time discrimination through evictions of Roma people was replaced by the racially motivated act of cutting off the only water supply the community had [1].
Furthermore, the mayor of Ozd said the council could no longer afford the 50,000-euro annual water bill from all the pumps in the town, and accused locals of abusing wells to wash their cars and fill swimming pools. The Roma, who make up about a third of Ozd's population of 36,000, deny the allegations and organised protests [4].
The BBC correspondent said that hundreds of people had to queue at roadside wells to collect a trickle of water. Wells had been disconnected or water pressure reduced in at least two other towns in north-eastern Hungary. The mayor and the council were from Hungary's ruling conservative party, Fidesz, which has previously been accused of failing to do enough to tackle anti-gypsyism and attacks in the country [4].
The episode in 2013 can be understood as part of a pattern of environmental racism against Roma people, in this case focused on water needs. Some years later, in 2015 another far-right mayor in Ózd introduced the idea that Roma people should work harder, and used hate speech against them [7]. It was reported that the mayor imposed longer hours, fewer breaks and soon the introduction of surveillance cameras to ensure that the Roma don't slack off the work. The mayor suggested that such tough work conditions were at least in part intended to drive Roma away: "Every person in Ózd has two options they either live in order and integrity and build the city, or they destroy it," Janiczak told The Associated Press. "The majority of these destructive people are Roma, without whom ... it would be easier for the city to develop" [7].
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