Murdered Roma remembered in Budapest ten years on

Victims murdered in a spate of racially-motivated attacks against Roma a decade earlier were commemorated in Budapest on Saturday.

The commemoration took place on the tenth anniversary of the murder of Róbert Csorba and his five-year-old son in Tatárszentgyörgy, central Hungary.

The two were shot fleeing their home which had been firebombed.

The organisers of the commemoration – Roma civil organisations, ethnic minority councils and activists – placed a memorial plaque to the victims in Budapest’s Pope John Paul II Square. Afterward, they walked by torchlight to central Deák Square to attend a service for the victims of the attacks in the Lutheran church there.

Photo: MTI

János Pál Csóka, head of the Budapest Roma Ethnic Minority Council, said it is important for Roma to stand up for their ethnic identity. The events of ten years ago were reminiscent of the Roma Holocaust “when our people were rounded up”, he said.

This must never happen again, he added.

The Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court, convicted four suspects for the murders in January 2016. Three were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and one to a thirteen-year prison term.

Featured image: MTI

Source: MTI