OSTROVANY, Slovakia: Lucia Kucharova never cared much about the view from her window until its main feature became a wall separating her and more than 1,000 other Roma from the rest of their village.

The white concrete wall, built recently in Ostrovany, a village of 1,800 in eastern Slovakia, has locals as well as Roma and human-rights organisations fuming.

'It's discrimination, the mayor should have used the money to build houses for us instead,' Kucharova, a 25-year-old Roma, told AFP.
The wall, which is 150 metres long and more than two metres high, cost 13,000 euros to build and begins where the road ends in Ostrovany.

But Cyril Revak, the village mayor since 1991, is careful to avoid calling it a wall.

'The fence doesn't prevent the Roma from coming to the village,' he said.
'It just prevents them from entering private gardens and stealing. It wasn't just petty theft, especially in autumn.

'People don't grow vegetables in their gardens any more, there's no use — everything gets stolen.'