Word: roma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...only Tiszalök. The murders, which began last November, have unsettled all of Hungary. "They just keep on killing Roma people," says a 35-year-old woman at the funeral, who refused to identify herself or her village because she feared being attacked herself...
...Relations between ethnic Hungarians and Roma, who account for 6% of the country's ten million people, have never been easy. Recent problems date to 2006 when a driver was beaten to death, reportedly by Roma bystanders, after his car hit, but did not seriously injure, a Roma child. Tensions grew a year later with the formation of a national paramilitary civilian group, which calls itself the Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard.) With uniforms that bear right wing nationalist symbols, the Garda drew the ire of the Roma community because of the group's stated mandate to protect Hungarians against 'Roma...
...Anger became open violence last year when Roma homes and citizens were shot at, and firebombed with Molotov cocktails. The first fatalities, a Roma couple living in the eastern village of Nagycsécs, occurred in November. In February in a village 39 miles (63 km) south of Budapest, Csaba Csorba, 27, and his four-year-old son were gunned down after firebombs had been used to flush them from their house...
...Police commissioner Bencze says that his officers are investigating as many as 18 incidents of anti-Roma violence, and believe that eight attacks could be the work of the same person or people who killed Koka. "The attacks are usually with Molotov cocktails and various types of firearms," says Bencze. "The attacks are usually at night, and against houses which are on the outskirts of the villages...
...Koka's home at the end of Nefelejcs Utca (Forget Me Not Street) on the edge of Tiszalök's Roma quarter bolsters Bencze's contention that the killer or killers plan their attacks and escapes carefully. By positioning themselves on the outskirts of the community, Koka's killers were able to lie in wait unobserved, and slip away without witnesses seeing their vehicle. According to a source in the Roma National Council, Koka's killers were careful not to leave a shell casing behind as evidence...