Romanian Roma Targeted by Extremists in Italy

20 November 2007

According to the Romanian information bulletin Divers of 20 August 2007, a group of Italian extremists fatally attacked Romanian Roma in Livorno earlier that month.

A previously unknown group of Italian extremists, the Armed Group for Ethnic Cleansing (GAPE), reportedly claimed in a letter to an Italian newspaper that they were behind the death of several Romanian Romani children in a fire in Livorno on 11th August 2007. In a letter to the newspaper Il Tirreno, the group stated that it aimed at the cleansing of all Romani people in Italy, whom they warned to have 20 days to leave the country starting 25 August before more serious attacks take place against them, Divers reported. The letter was delivered to prosecutors in Livorno.

It had originally been believed that the fire in which the Romani children died was sparked by a candle. Italian authorities were quoted by Romanian media saying that they were sticking to this version as there was little evidence to support the GAPE claims.

Scandals involving Romanian Roma over the past several years have been drawing intense attention in Italian media as local communities repeatedly violently intervened. For example, in December 2006 several illegal camps of Romanian Roma were set on fire by the people of the small Italian town Milanese.

(Divers)