Ukraine: One Romani man killed and others injured, including child, during yet another neo-Nazi pogrom
During the late night hours of Saturday, 23 and the early morning hours of Sunday, 24 June yet another attack was perpetrated by neo-Nazis against a Romani encampment in Ukraine. A Romani man was killed and others injured, including a 10-year-old boy.
Police have arrested seven attackers involved. According to the initial reporting, an organized neo-Nazi group is behind the attack.
“On 23 June at 23:25 a police official announced that a group of unidentified masked persons had attacked a camp where Romani citizens were living in the forest on the outskirts of Lviv,” Ukrainian Police reported. According to the head of the Ukrainian National Police, Sergij Knyazjev, seven youths have been arrested who are suspected of having participated in the attack.
The attackers were aged between 16 and 17 and are Lviv residents. The 20-year-old organizer of the attack was also arrested.
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During the attack a 24-year-old Romani man was killed. He died as a result of stab wounds.
A 30-year-old woman and two 20-year-old men suffered stab wounds as well. A 10-year-old boy was also injured during the assault.
All those injured have been hospitalized and their lives are no longer in danger. The 30-year-old woman and her 10-year-old son were released from hospital before noon today.
“The perpetrators of this amoral assault against the Romani citizens, during which a 24-year-old man was killed and even a child was injured, will be prosecuted and punished according to the applicable legal regulations,” Knyazjev reported.
According to police the assailants will be charged with premeditated murder committed as an organized group and face between 15 years and life in prison if convicted. Mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi has also given a statement about the nighttime assault on the Romani people.
“A woman was attacked because she was defending her 10-year-old son,” the mayor described before also stating that the Romani people are currently under police protection. He called on police to thoroughly investigate the assault and punish the murderers.
Neo-Nazis are regularly attacking Romani people in Ukraine. The last attack before this one was on 7 June, when neo-Nazis from the Azov National Militia used axes and hammers during their assault on a Romani camp.
That entire pogrom was broadcast live on Facebook from Holosiyivskiy Park without police intervening. In May criminal neo-Nazis attacked a Romani camp in the western city of Ternopil. That was preceded by arson against a camp in the nearby village of Rudne in the Lviv Region.
In April members of the neo-Nazi group C14 drove a group of Romani people out of a camp in the Lysá Hora nature reserve in Kyiv. The masked attackers threw rocks and sprayed tear gas at the Romani children, men and women there.
Human rights organizations are criticizing the Ukrainian authorities for ignoring violent attacks by neo-Nazis against minorities, including Romani people. “{Neo-Nazis] pose an actual physical threat to left-wing, feminist, liberal and LGBT activists, to human rights defenders, and to ethnic and religious minorities,” the organizations have reported.
