Evicted Mahilou residents ready for hunger strike

Former dwellers of residential building No. 59 in Leninskaya Street in Mahilou are ready to start a hunger strike.

They say nobody reads their joint appeals. Officials do not try to solve the problem, preferring to redirect their letters from one government body to another, Viasna human rights centre reports.

Former dwellers of block of flats No. 59 in Leninskaya Street learnt some days ago that their second appeal to Lukashenka's administration was resent to the prosecutor general's office and then to the regional prosecutor's office. People say they already appealed to prosecutor's offices, but got no help. They only hoped for the administration of Lukashenka.

Thirteen evicted residents have been struggling for a year for the right to get flats after the building was declared dangerous. The building, which has not been demolished yet, is damaged by homeless people who found shelter there. Dwellers suspect that their home was given the dangerous status to demolish it and construct an office building in its place, as the city centre is attractive for potential investors.

People, who had lived in the building for more than 60 years, have housing allocation orders issued by the local councils saying they must receive flats. Residents learnt in 2009 that they lived not in a block of flats but in a dormitory. They were not informed that the status of the building was changed. Moreover, all other documents for the building from Beltelecom and the gas company say they lived in flats.

Officials cannot answer when the decision to change the status of the building was made. They wrote in one of the replies that it was done in 1988, but another reply says about 2006.

The only body able to solve the problem is the Supreme Court, but people do not put much hope on it.