As we already reported, attacks against national minorities in Ukraine are unfortunately not exceptional. For example, in February the headquarters of ethnic Hungarian cultural association KMKSZ in Uzhhorod, in western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region was set on fire two times. Now, unknown people wearing masks attacked the Roma camp established near the city of Lviv (Lemberg). Seven assaulters were taken into custody; one young man died – reported hvg.hu.
The attacked Romas were from Transcarpathia
According to the Hungarian news portal, they were armed with knives and baseball bats, and they assaulted the Hungarian speaking Romas at Saturday midnight in the outer parts of Lviv. In fact,
one man died while four are severely injured.
According to the local police, they commanded officers on the spot right at the moment when they received notice about the ongoing events. Thus, they could stop the aggression, and they took two attackers into custody.
Based on zik.ua, a Western-Ukrainian news portal’s report, one man (24) died in the attack. His permanent residency was in Szernye, a village in the Mukacheve (Munkács) Raion, Transcarpathia. Four men were taken to hospital with stab wounds. According to the news portal, one of them lives in Munkács while the others in Barkaszó, Mukacheve Raion.
The governor condemned the pogrom
In fact, Hennadiy Moskal, the governor of Zakarpattia Oblast (Transcarpathia) condemned the attack in a statement published on his official website. According to him, the assault in Lviv shows that
‘Ukraine sinks into extremism and racism.’
He added that the fact that such anti-Roma attacks happen regularly in different parts of the country reminds everybody of the pogroms conducted in Nazi Germany before. The only difference is that at present the Ukrainian authorities do not encourage such sorrowful events to happen – wrote Moskal.
The governor highlighted that the law enforcement agencies are lazing while
one part of the society tacitly indorses such atrocities.
According to him, this is a very troublesome sign. At the same time, he recalled the fact the half of the Roma population living in Ukraine lives in Transcarpathia. Besides, they celebrate the International Romani (Roma) Day only in that region of Ukraine. He added that there are problems with Roma people. However, he sees the solution in their integration, not in pogroms, beating or murdering them. If Ukraine chose the European way, Kiev should deal with ethnical questions by using European methods. This means cooperating with law enforcement agencies. Moskal highlighted that
racism leads to the complete isolation of the country.
Ukrainian nationalists have already attacked two times this year the temporary camps of the Romas near Kiev. Besides, such pogroms happened in Ternopil and Lviv before. In fact, two Ukrainian neo-Nazi organisations took responsibility for the events then: the C14 and the so called National Brigades.
Source: hvg.hu, Daily News Hungary
