Pope Francis plans to meet with Slovakia's Roma minority when he visits the country next month, an archbishop said on Monday (August 2nd) in a statement marking Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day.
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During his stay in Slovakia from September 12 to 15, the Sovereign Pontiff will meet the Roma community of the poor housing estate of Lunik IX, an urban wasteland in the town of Kosice (south). "
Pope Francis is aware of the problems of minorities and has accepted the meeting scheduled for Lunik IX
", declared Bernard Bober, Archbishop of Kosice. "
It may be a new start for the cooperation of the majority with the minority,
" he added. Almost 20% of some 400,000 Slovak Roma live in deep poverty in more than 600 slums, mainly in the south and east of this country of 5.4 million inhabitants.
The government official responsible for Roma issues, Andrea Buckova, said on Monday that it was necessary to remind the younger generations that racism and hate speech have no place in society.
“
Unfortunately, discrimination persists in Slovakia, as stereotypes and prejudices against Roma deepen, which has been confirmed by several polls and individual experiences
,” she said, quoted by the news agency. Slovak SITA.
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Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the events of August 2-3, 1944, when nearly 3,000 Roma, mostly women, children and the elderly, were killed in the German Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz -Birkenau.
