Stockholm University exchange students have been told to leave their accommodation immediately after a community of travellers set up an illegal camp nearby, raising concerns for the students’ safety.

Doug Revolta, an Erasmus student from the UK, had been living since mid-January in Stockholm University accommodation in the capital city’s northern suburbs.

“I was having a great time here, and when they offered us the chance to extend our lease back in April I said yes, absolutely. I wanted to stay here for Swedish midsummer,” he told The Local.

However, the plan took an unexpected turn this week when the university housing office sent an email to Revolta and his fellow students warning them that a nearby travelling community had caused enough concern that the students should move out.

“Because of the people who illegally moved into the parking area close to your apartments, we have decided that all students will be moved on June 17th,” the university wrote in an email to the students.

“The Housing Office at Stockholm University have done everything we can to resolve the situation, but our possibilities are very limited,” the university added, also warning that if “something happens” the students should call the police.

In a follow-up email sent on Friday, the message was more urgent:

“We would like everyone to move out today. We cannot guarantee the security for students over the weekend anymore.”

The move was sparked by a community of what Revolta estimates to be 50 families living in caravans in a nearby car park. The families have got out of hand in recent weeks, according to Revolta, who said that some of his classmates had nearly been run over by the community’s vehicles. Some students, including himself, have even been threatened by the families.

A police spokeswoman confirmed that the families are on the police radar.

“It is hard for us to control, they are uninvited and living on land that the university claims does not belong to them,” Helena Appelgren told The Local.

“Patrols have been sent out several times, but nothing has happened there, I can’t confirm that we have made any arrests. We don’t usually arrest people just for camping illegally,” she added.

“But this is a recurring problem that we have every year, it’s people from all kinds of places making things very problematic around these areas for a lot of people.”

Appelgren pointed to excessive noise and garbage pile-ups as some of the complaints the police receive.

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A mob of 50 furious Italians stormed a Roma camp outside Naples after a girl suffered an alleged attempted rape by two gypsies.

Dozens of Neapolitans laid siege to the camp, pelting residents with rocks before being restrained by the police.

The following day dozens of the inhabitants of the Poggioreale site, on the eastern outskirts of Naples, decamped.

Entire families fled the site in vans, apparently fearing further attacks.

A 16-year old Italian girl had returned home in a state of agitation, complaining of the alleged attack by two Roma, around 9pm on Tuesday night.

She was taken to hospital in a state of shock.

Relatives of the girl headed for the camp with the intention of ‘punishing’ the perpetrators, before exchanging blows with Roma, leaving them injured.

But hours later they returned, flanked by the vigilante mob, threatening fires and launching rocks at the campsite.

The site’s 250 inhabitants were forced to put up road blocks to defend themselves, and the police eventually managed to restore order.

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These stark pictures show a Romanian caravan park located just outside the city of Hogdalen, Stockholm.

There are around 30 similar settlements in the area where shacks, dilapidated caravans and tents serve as people’s temporary homes.

There are approximately six mobile homes and several more primitive homemade shacks in the make-shift town.

None of the homes have running water, electricity or cooking facilities.

Romanian Viorica Vaduva, 42, who is four months pregnant, lives in the shanty town. She previously work as a maid in Spain before the financial crisis  – but now survives through begging on the streets of Stockholm.

She says moving to the country was a last resort. She added: ‘At home there are no jobs, we have no other options’.

The mother is the sole means of support for her parents and her 8-year-old daughter, all of whom live in Romania.

She said: ‘Everyone who lives here begging. Some of the men have construction jobs during the summer’.

‘We usually go into the city at eight thirty. I have no fixed place but sit in different places in the city’.

The mother uses an oil drum to burn a fire – which she both cooks on and uses to heat her caravan.

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