Serbia: Kiosk owner who dragged a 13-year-old Romani boy into a bush and beat him faces legal action
24 January 2026
By Judit Ignácz
Romani parents have taken legal action after a kiosk-owner dragged their 13-year-old son out of a shopping mall and beat him in a bush while allegedly insulting him based on his ethnicity in Kragujevac, Serbia. The boy has multiple physical injuries, a hematoma on the lip, and injuries to his neck and jaw, which were confirmed by medical examinations, and the family has documentation and photos that have been submitted to the authorities. Due to experiencing psychological trauma, he was also taken to a psychiatrist.
“The authorities must ensure that both the child’s age and his ethnic background are central to the investigation and prosecution of this case, as the law requires. This incident must be examined not merely as an act of assault, but also as a potential hate crime. Any response that falls short of this standard would represent a failure to protect a child from violence and to effectively address racially motivated crime.” - said Andrea Colak, the ERRC’s Legal Consultant in Serbia.
According to the mother, the boy was on the ground floor of the shopping centre when another boy on the upper floor threw a water-filled balloon at him. He picked up the balloon, and his sister, who was with him, told the other child not to throw it because they might get in trouble. At that moment, security arrived and forced the boy outside. Shortly afterward, an adult man, identified by the family as the owner of a nearby kiosk, grabbed the boy from behind by the neck, tore his jacket, and dragged him out onto the street. The boy hit his head on a lamppost, and then the man dragged him into a nearby bush off the road, where he first threw him onto the ground, kicked him, lifted him by the neck, and punched him. The boy’s phone was also broken in the assault. The attacker is alleged to have used ethnic slurs during the incident, referring to the boy as “ciganska” (a derogatory term referring to Roma), highlighting the likelihood of the crime being racially motivated.
“How does an adult have the right to beat anyone’s child?” asked his mother in an interview with local press. Cameras from a nearby café recorded the man dragging the boy, but when asked by their lawyer, the family was not allowed to see the footage.
The parents filed a criminal complaint with local police and engaged a lawyer, but they say they have not been informed whether the alleged attacker was detained or formally charged. Meanwhile, the attacker filed his own complaint against the parents, claiming that the boy’s mother threatened him via Instagram message.
Roma rights groups and community advocates stress that violence against Roma continues to be a serious human rights concern in Serbia and across the region. The Roma Party publicly condemned the attack, stating that the attacker verbally abused the child using ethnic slurs, and called for authorities to investigate the incident independently and transparently, with the potential of a hate crime, and to examine any links between the attacker and local authorities. They claimed that the attacker might have close ties to local authorities, which again raises concerns about potential impunity and further barriers when seeking justice. This claim was emphatically denied by Gordana Damnjanović, the Assistant Mayor for Health and Social Protection, who stated that the person accused of committing the criminal act has no connection with representatives of the current government, nor with any person from the City of Kragujevac.
Attacks on Romani children by adult members of the public are well documented in Serbia. In a 2017 case brought by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), a nine-year-old Romani boy in Valjevo was physically assaulted by a municipal official while playing music in a public square. The official first threatened the boy and his sister before taking the boy, holding one side of his head and hitting him on the other cheek. The local prosecutor ultimately ordered the official to pay a small sum to charity and dismissed the criminal complaint, leading to the victim’s family bringing the matter to Serbia’s Constitutional Court where the case is pending.
Other cases point to a wider pattern of violence against Romani children by adults going back decades. The ERRC has reported incidents in 2011 in which Romani boys were attacked and racially abused by three grown men on their way to school, with authorities failing to recognise or pursue the racial motivation behind the assaults. In addition, the ERRC has documented multiple cases of police violence against Romani minors, including the beating of a 14-year-old boy in Novi Sad in 2011 to try and extort a confession from him, and the physical abuse of an 11-year-old child during police questioning in Belgrade in 2019. These cases highlight persistent failures to protect Romani children from violence and to ensure accountability when abuse is committed either by private individuals or state officials.
International human rights standards require states to protect children from violence and to investigate thoroughly any crimes motivated by racism or ethnic hatred. However, as of time of writing, there has been no public confirmation from police regarding charges or arrests of the kiosk-owner in Kragujevac. Roma rights activists and community members are closely following the outcome of the criminal investigation.
