PATIENTS FROM THE TICHILESTI LEPER COLONY TALK POLITICS, 2000-05-23 (photo)

Vasile Tarita, 73, nicknamed "The Mayor" (L), talks politics about upcoming local elections with Gavrila Batilchi (R) May 23 as British policemen distribute aid at the Tichilesti leper colony in southeast Romania. Some 110 British policemen and senior officers from the London Metropolitan police distributed aid at orphanages and hospitals in Bucharest, the Black Sea port of Constanta and also at Tichilesti, Europe's only leper colony. The patients from the leprosarium are cured but still bear the horrific evidence of the disease like missing toes, fingers, ears and eyes. Tarata, who has his fingers burned by the cigarettes, doesn't feel the pain as the disease has weakened his nervous system. RS/