Cluj - In Romania the ultra-nationalist mayor of Cluj, Mr Gheorghe Funar, forced about 30 homeless people out of the town yesterday aboard trains, an AFP correspondent witnessed. They were forced to pay for a first-class train ticket out of their own pocket.
The mostly adult beggars were rounded up at the police station and questioned as to their origins. The police then confiscated their earnings for the day and redistributed them among the homeless so that each person had enough money for a train ticket.
The only two children in the group came from Cluj and were placed in a local orphanage. "We will organise similar round-ups each week until the town is rid of beggars," the mayor's spokesman said. The number of homeless people from Romania's poorer regions has been growing steadily in Cluj.