Roma Flee Vigilante Training Camp

More than 270 Roma women and children evacuated their Hungarian village today after vigilantes established a training camp nearby, the AP reports. The vigilante group, called Vedero, wants “to intimidate the Roma here," said the head of the local Roma council. “We are afraid and we have reason to be." Claiming to be protecting non-Roma residents from “Gypsy crime,” vigilantes have lately been patrolling Roma villages across eastern Hungary.

Vedero’s training camp is for “all youths and adults who love their country and who are interested in learning military and self-defense basics,” its website says. “For the past nearly two months,” the village of “Gyongyospata has been practically a battlefield,” says the council chair. “Their presence is extremely upsetting and will achieve nothing." (More Roma stories.)