Another Roma ghetto in Bulgaria is facing demolition. Sofia authorities have warned the inhabitants of the Malinova Dolina borough ghetto that they have 30 days (August 15) to clear out or be driven out, Bulgarian television channel bTV said on July 14 2010.

"The Roma will be evicted by force and their shelters will be flattened," bTV said.

The campsite is on a meadow under a bridge that passes over the Sofia Ring Road. It is near to people who live in Berkovitsa, Lom, and Loukovit while the entire area is now full of roaming stray dogs because of the campsite.

Last week, a nine-year-old child was taken to Pirogov hospital in Sofia and is still in critical condition after it was viciously attacked by a pack of stray dogs, which have been associated with the Roma campsite, the report said.

"What are you doing here, where do you work," a bTV reporter asked one of the Roma people at the site.

"At the rubbish bins"

"How could you bring a six-month-old child to such squalor?"

"It will grow up," said the Roma, who was not identified in the report.

"So how do you imagine your life here then?"

"Just like that."

In April 2010, a Roma ghetto in the Sofia borough of Vrubnitsa was razed as part of a "spring clean-up operation" in the capital.

The ghetto, consisting of barracks, sheds and other illegal constructions, is on municipal land. Residents of Vrubnitsa signed a petition in January 2010 demanding that the Roma be expelled from the site. The ghetto was flattened at the cost of 40 000 leva, paid from the public purse.

On January 14 2010, Bourgas municipality ordered a Roma ghetto in the city's Slaveikov borough demolished.

The Roma site, which at the time consisted of about 20 shacks and other "shelters", was near a major railway junction. Bulldozers arrived and flattened the buildings in the perimeter while the Roma were expelled.