Tucked away in a waiting area by Platform One at Prague's main train station is a sight that belies claims of generous help for all Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic.
Sleeping bags are strewn on the floor and plastic bags full of clothes pile high. Sweltering in the early summer heat, children let off steam by charging up and down the empty platform before collapsing disconsolately on wooden benches.
This is the limbo into which hundreds of Roma refugees have been thrown. While waiting for judgement from the Czech authorities on their right to a temporary visa, they cannot get accommodation from the state. They simply sleep on the floor at the station, and wait.
Volunteers working here say they've never seen refugees of other ethnicities in the same dire circumstances.
When EUobserver asks one of the guards whether journalists can gain access, he chuckles.
"You won't see anything here," he says. "It's closed off for photos, everything. TV crews come and film the black plastic wall here by the entrance, and that's it."
He confirmed that the tent city is only being used for Roma people.
It's been suggested that some of the Roma refugees arriving in Prague are part of the Hungarian diaspora from western Ukraine, and that they also have Hungarian citizenship.
Czech interior minister Vít Rakušan has described the arrival of Roma people from Hungary as "a big problem."
Link: https://euobserver.com/world/154968
