&#145;Gypsies out!&#146;

last updated 8 January 2015

Ambrus, Slovenia

A Roma family attempting last week to return to the home they had been chased out of a month earlier were blocked by a mob of 1,000 villagers. The 31 members of the Strojan family had lived in Ambrus for decades until a fight with a neighbor sparked a racist attack, and they were expelled by hundreds of villagers yelling "Gypsies out!" in German. Roma is the preferred name for the ethnic group often called Gypsies. After a month in a squalid refugee camp, the Strojans headed home, but their former neighbors blocked the roads and fought with riot police, who eventually persuaded the Strojans to turn back. Human-rights groups say anti-Roma incidents are on the rise in Europe. Also last week, the mayor of Vsetin, Czech Republic, evicted 100 Roma from the town, announcing that he was "cleaning an ulcer."