Rome, 9 June (AKI) - Eight out of 10 Italians want Roma Gypsy camps dismantled, according to a survey released on Monday by a leading Italian research institute.

Demos-Coop, an institute that conducts social and political research, interviewed 1300 people across Italy in May. It found almost half of those surveyed were afraid of foreigners and wanted more police on the streets.

Hundreds of people protested in Rome on Sunday after local police dismantled a Roma Gypsy camp in the central area of Testaccio on Friday.

Roma Gypsies interviewed by Adnkronos International (AKI) before they were removed from Testaccio said they were being unfairly targeted by the government and being forced to move from their land.

"We are Italian citizens, we want to live like everyone else," one man told AKI. "We have suffered enough and we don't want our children to go through the same," said 'Mike', a Kalderash Roma.

The new Berlusconi government is committed to step up security and keep an electoral pledge to clamp down on illegal immigration and crime, while Rome's mayor has vowed to dismantle illegal Gypsy camps.

One Roma Gypsy, facing eviction on Friday, told AKI: "We want to live in a house like everyone else."

"We can afford rent, if they want us to pay, we can, we have no problem, but they keep promising us housing and nothing happens," said the woman.

According to the Roma interviewed and experts on the matter, Italians will not rent or sell land to the Roma Gypsies.

Police in riot gear waited at the entrance of the Testaccio camp on Friday and later escorted families in a convoy of caravans to Tor Vergata, on the eastern outskirts of Rome.

Many of the children attended school in Testaccio and families claimed it would be difficult for the children to attend if they were moved outside the city centre where they had lived for almost 20 years.

The dismantled camp had housed 150 people, including 50 children. Several told AKI they were all Italian citizens and had lived in the neighbourhood since 1989.

In an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI) Karen Bermann, an American professor from Iowa State University, spoke to AKI about the widespread discrimination and the unfair treatment the Roma Gypsies face.

Bermann said they had been moved from nearby Campo Boario, where they had lived legally for about 20 years, while they waited for better accommodation, promised by the city government.

"About two and a half years ago, city authorities went to them and told them they needed the space," Bermann told AKI.

"The city said they would have another place to live, and that it would be in the zone of Testaccio, because the children go to school there.

"But (they said) we will in no way evict you until a mutually satisfactory location has been found."

Bermann claims to have a copy of the letter sent by the city government.

"The promise was not kept, and when the day came, the city came with police and told them it was time to go," she told AKI.

Bermann, from Iowa State University, works with Laboratorio Architettura Nomade, studies the living conditions of Roma Gypsy settlements in Rome, as part of an EU-Roma project.

The Gypsies were relocated from Testaccio to an area of land belonging to the University of Rome - Tor Vergata.

On Monday, the university's chancellor said that the government must act quickly to resolve the situation of the Roma, so the area they occupy can be used by students.

"The university reserves the right to protect its interests and assets of whom it owns," said chancellor Alessandro Finazzi Agro.

Tens of thousands of Roma Gypsies have entered Italy in the past few years since Slovakia and Romania joined the European Union, and they are blamed by many Italians for a recent rise in crime rates.

Many Roma Gypsies come from Romania and of the 150,000 Roma gypsies who live in Italy, about 70,000 have Italian citizenship.