Roma fled after Northern Irish attacks

Romania’s Roma community fled their South Belfast home after a spate of racist attacks in June 2009, the BBC has learnt.

Some of the members saying they feel intimidated and very scaring after the locals throwing bricks to their window in their South Belfast home.

After temporarily sheltering in a local church hall following the attacks, they were all replaced at the O-Zone sports complex in Belfast.

Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman said the number of racially motivated crime has increased rapidly in the course of 10 years, up to date there are nearly 1,000 compared to 41 incidents in 1996.

Part of the increase can be explained the growing number of migrants coming to Northern Ireland following the paramilitary ceasefires, and the enlargement of central and eastern European countries into the European Union.

Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde told the BBC his officers respond to the attacks “within 10 minutes”. In some cases, police responded to calls from attacked Romania families within 1 minute.

Some of the Local Irish demonstrate to show their support to those vulnerable Roma women and children.

“This protest has sent a clear message that people do not want this going on in their area and that this has to stop right now." Protest organiser Paddy Meehan said in an interview with the BBC.

Anna Lo, from Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, told the Guardian: “We are all here to show support for the migrant workers who have been attacked and have been hounded out from one street to another street.”

Gordon Brown condemned the attacks and told the Guardian: “I hope the authorities are able to take all the action necessary to protect them.”

Belfast’s lord mayor, Naomi Long, said the attacks had brought shame on the city.

Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie told the BBC on 17 June 2009, after the attacks, 25 members out of 100 from Roma minority group had already decided leaving to Romania, 75 were going to leave as soon as possible, 14 will stay in Northern Ireland.

However, according to Romanian media, it seems their returning home will not guarantee their certain future, as the home media reflects their fate in an unusual sympathetic manner.

Roma is reportedly a minority group who is discriminated throughout the whole Europe, even in their motherland Romania, they were called “Roma” or even “Gypsies” to distinguish them from the Romanian majority.

Only few headlines about the attacks can be found on Romanian media websites.

If Romanian reporters show their sympathy to those who fled home, some of their readers voiced prejudices against the Roma minority.

According to the BBC, Andrei Badin, a leading TV talk show host and author of a well known internet blog, said it was very unlucky compared to developed countries, civic sense in Romania is “much lower”.

He added: “Regrettably, Romanians show little solidarity towards their compatriots, irrespective of their ethnic group.”

In the meeting with Romanians in Belfast and the Northern Ireland authorities, Dr Ion Jinga, the Romanian ambassador to the UK, expressed his concern on the Romanian state still had no strategy to integrate the Roma, and many of the community members are poorly educated, the BBC reports.