Hungary's Gypsies under attack

BUDAPEST, Hungary, April 7 (UPI) -- Arsonists set fire Tuesday to a village apartment of a Romany official in eastern Hungary, a region known for recent killings of Gypsies, police said.

Peter Papp, chief of the Pest county police department said nobody was injured when a block of apartments in Tatarszentgyorgy was set on fire by an unidentified person, the Hungarian news agency MTI reported.

The fire was not caused by an incident such as an electric wire fault, Papp said. The apartment belonged to a deputy head of the Pest Romany self-government.

In February, a Romany and his son were shot dead and two other children seriously injured when they tried to flee their village house that was in flames.

Hungarian health authorities and fire brigade officials insisted the father and his son died of suffocation when the fire, allegedly caused by a faulty electric wire, swept the house.

The authorities said two died in an accidental fire even though it was obvious both died of firearm wounds, MTI said.

The Romany community and other national minorities in Hungary has been a target of hatred and terror by locals for years.