Ukrainian police terrorise Roma
12 April 2000
On September 5, 1999, at approximately 2 AM, a group of policemen in a joint team with the special Ukrainian riot police “Berkut”, raided a Romani tent camp, home to approximately eighty individuals, situated on the borderline between the forest and the outskirts of Kiev. In the course of the raid, officers set the tents on fire. According to testimonies provided by Roma who lived there, the assault took place in the middle of the night when people were sleeping. Roma were reportedly asleep in the tents when officers set fire to them. Many fled in panic, having time only to save their children from the fire while documents, clothes, kitchen utensils and other personal belongings were destroyed. According to Romani witnesses, the policemen also reportedly attempted to kidnap a 17-year-old Romani girl. Officers reportedly beat Romani men who defended the girl and subsequently took them into police custody. The policemen also beat those Roma who had not managed to flee, loaded them onto lorries and transported to a field approximately 120 kilometres from the scene of the assault, close to Zhitomir, west of Kiev. The deported Roma were threatened that if they returned to the site of the destroyed camp, they would be crippled. The next day, the traces of the night raid and fire were allegedly obliterated with bulldozers. According to the Kiev-based Roma Youth Association, the victims were too afraid to file complaints in connection with the raid and fire. The detained Roma were reportedly released without being charged.
A similar atrocity took place approximately one month later in another Roma camp of around two hundred tents, situated on the borderline of two city districts in Kiev: the Podolskij and Shevtchenkovskij districts. On October 2, 1999, at approximately midnight, according to eyewitness statements, police allegedly set fire to tents in which Roma were sleeping and then deported Roma living at the site from the city. When asked by the Kiev-based non-governmental organisation Roma Youth Association, police officials of the two district police departments stated that a joint raid had been undertaken by the two police departments on October 3 at approximately noon. The police officials claimed that when they arrived at the site of the camp everything had already been destroyed by the fire. As of December 15, it was not known where the expelled Roma had been taken and none had returned to Kiev. According to the Roma Youth Association, those Roma who survived the raids and arson are afraid to file complaints with the prosecutor.
(Roma Youth Association)
