Non-governmental organization Praxis, Humanitarian Law Centre, Regional Centre for Minorities and Centre for Youth Integration appeal to state bodies and local self-governments to provide urgent assistance to inhabitants of informal settlements, in accordance with their capabilities and competences. Additionally, we are inviting the citizens and socially responsible companies to show their solidarity with inhabitants of these settlements in extremely unfavourable weather conditions and help them by donating firewood, food and warm clothing.

Our fellow citizens from informal settlements live below the poverty line. Many of them live without social protection and health care, without a permanent source of income, in houses made of material considered waste by most of citizens, and in conditions of complete social exclusion. At extremely low temperatures, the health and even life of the inhabitants of informal settlements, particularly of children and the elderly, is jeopardized due to poor insulation of the houses they live in, lack of firewood, food and impossibility to work during extremely difficult weather conditions. Of special concern is the forecast predicting a continuation of the cold wave in the forthcoming days, and also the fact that their situation is not improving and that a great number of children living in these settlements will not have the chance to get warm in schools, as they have been closed.

We urgently appeal to competent state bodies to enlarge capacities of shelters and reception centres and institutions of social protection in order to provide temporary shelter from cold to the most vulnerable inhabitants of the informal settlements. In considering possible solutions for the accommodation of the most vulnerable, we would like to bring attention to the fact that displacement of children in such cases is considered with utmost care and requires additional efforts so as to preserve the family unit. Also, we are calling on representatives of institutions of social protection to form mobile teams in their communities, which will visit the inhabitants of the most endangered informal settlements in order to adequately meet their existential needs in the shortest possible period.