Another Roma Settlement Destroyed in Kyiv

08 June 2018 01:50

Members of the National Druzhyna militia have destroyed a Roma settlement in Holosiivskyi Park in Kyiv.

This marks the fourth attack on the Roma population in Ukraine in just over a month.

National Druzhyna, founded by veterans of the far-right Azov Battalion, put a threat out on Facebook just hours earlier, promising to clear out the settlement if its residents didn’t leave within 24 hours.

“When the police do not cope, National Druzhyna takes control of the situation. We are giving you 24 hours to leave the territory, remove the garbage, otherwise we will gather a mob in Holosiivskyi park,” the organization wrote on their Facebook page.

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However, some six hours later, men dressed in military T-shirts with the National Druzhyna insignia appeared in the park and started wrecking the Roma huts with hammers while its residents fled the camp site. The attack was broadcast live on the organization’s Facebook page.

The video shows National Druzhyna members destroying the settlement and speaking in a menacing manner with a Roma woman, who said that she lived in the camp with her family.

Kyiv police spokeswoman Oksana Blyshchik told Hromadske the camp was empty when National Druzhyna members arrived and therefore there were no victims and no one was detained.

The police added that they did not open criminal proceedings after the attack.

Three Roma camps have already been attacked across Ukraine in the last month and a half.

In May, a group of people attacked a Roma camp in Ternopil. It followed another incident where a group of people burned down a Roma camp in the village of Rudne in the Lviv region. Their property was destroyed, and they were forced to flee their settlement. Human rights groups say some of the families were left homeless.

Prior to that, on April 22, members of the right-wing extremist organization С14 set fire to a Roma camp at Lysa Hora in Kyiv.