Hungary: sixth victim of anti-Roma terror laid to rest

A Roma woman, Maria Balogh, was shot dead and her 13-year-old daughter gravely injured when their house in the village of Kisleta, Hungary, was attacked early Aug. 3—the latest in a series of attacks on Roma. She was the sixth victim of what police believe is an armed gang targeting members of Hungary’s large Roma community. The other victims killed over the past year were similarly slain in night attacks on their homes, apparently without any provocation. (BBC News, Aug. 7; NYT, Aug. 3)

Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai did not attend the funeral Aug. 7, but issued a statement saying the perpetrators’ actions were condemned by the whole of Hungarian society. “Today I share the pain of the victims’ relatives and friends, as well as the concern of my Roma countrymen,” he said. (DPA, Aug. 7)

See our last posts on the Roma and the radical right resurgence in Central Europe.

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