On August 10th, 2007, four Roma children, Eva, Menjii, Danchiu and Lenuca Carolea, perished among the flames that had enveloped the miserable hut they were living in. After the tragedy, their parents said they had chased after some people (most probably Italian) who had inveighed against them and gypsies in general. When they returned to the shed they found it in flames are were helpless to do anything to save the children. The investigators did not believe the parents and – with no respect for their suffering or any consideration of their precious testimony – they threw them into jail charged with “abandonment of a minor” and “arson”.

A few days later a racist organization, GAPE (Armed Group for Ethnic Cleansing) claimed responsibility for the crime in a letter to local newspapers, “Il Tirreno” and “La Nazione”. The letter was admitted as evidence by the investigators, but they decided to ignore it, and confirm the charge against the parents, who were not released from prison. To date, it does not appear that the inquiry has concentrated on finding the real murderers, who have already claimed responsibility for the crime. Following an inspection of the scene of the fire carried out by the forensic team and the Fire Department, shards of glass and a bottle neck which had been molten in the fire were recovered.
The parents of the four children had in fact told investigators that they had spotted a person holding a bottle among the assailants. As Gruppo EveryOne has demonstrated, the bottle neck is proof of the racist origins of the crime: glass only melts at a temperature of over 1000 degrees centigrade, while a normal fire does not cause temperatures over 700 (the temperature of the fire at the Twin Towers was 700 degrees centigrade). On the contrary, a petrol bomb can reach and exceed a temperature of 1000 degrees centigrade. Roberto Tartarelli, the chemical engineer, has written out a report stating the truth: the fire was a case of arson, and racist infanticide.

Shortly before the children’s funeral, the father of one of the children, Victor Lacatus (aged 30) attempted suicide for the second time in “Le Sughere” prison in Livorno where he is being detained. The following day the wardens miraculously prevented him smashing his head in against the wall of his cell. The other father, Menjii Clopotar (aged 44) is in a desperate physical and psychological condition, as are the two mothers, Elena Lacatus (29) and Uca Caldarer (38), one of whom was caught smashing her head against the edge of a table.
The story of the young Romanies of Livorno is indicative of the oppression that Italian institutions – and often everyday citizens, due to prejudice and ignorance – exert on Romanies. In tears, the parents confirm the version of racist infanticide. In the meantime the investigators have cleared the parents of the charge of arson, but continue to insist with the charge of abandonment of a minor: a serious charge, but one which cannot be applied to people who live a life of marginalization, poverty and persecution. It is the institutions, if anyone, that are guilty of abandoning minors, adults and elderly people: the gypsies who try to survive in our country, driven out, tormented, harassed by everyone.

At the present there are about 100,000 gypsies living in Italy, half of them children or young adults. There are too few authorized camps to house them all, and the transit camps (with their right to camp and sojourn) which were taken from them by the Nazi-Fascist regime have not been reinstated. Therefore, among general indifference, we are witnessing a new genocide of Romanies., the new Porrajmos. Victor, Elena, Menjii and Uca, who are now in the hands of an unjust justice, loved their children so profoundly that they were never separated from them. The authorized camps had turned them away: they had not been offered any help or welfare, and yet they had stuck together. Heroically united, so much so they chose the only roof available to them where they could build a hut: the arches of a bridge. And that’s where, on the outskirts of the city, the two groups of parents succeeded in bringing up their children, they fed them and brought them up offering all they possessed: love for the family and very little else.
After claiming responsibility, we are aware that a gang of murderers, who have issued death threats to all the nomad communities in Italy, are running around our country unpunished, seeing the authorities appear not to want to look for them. And why is that, we may ask? Sadly, at the gypsy children’s funeral, some people – stirred up by the press and the new generation of racists – were saying things like: “Just as well, they were little thieves. And their parents are murderers.”
The Italy of prejudice, racial hatred and horror has prevailed for the time being. It is time for the Italy of Human Rights to speak out. It is time to raise a chorus of voices to defend the rights of four innocent people oppressed to the point of abuse. This chorus must become the symbol of a new campaign against the prejudice against Romanies which kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people every year, as demonstrated in a report written by the EveryOne Group a report that will soon be distributed in the seat of the European Parliament.
When the media has forgotten this new case of prejudice and violence, the four Roma parents – the only witnesses to this
brutal racist murder – will be helpless against those who claim that the Roma “problem” can only be solved by wiping them out, or by obligatory repatriation, using funds set aside by the European Union for the expulsion of illegal immigrants. And believe us, it is quite an amount.

For further information:  info@everyonegroup.com
News on the case: www.annesdoor.com
Let us sign this petition promoted by Gruppo EveryOne and the ”Amici degli Angeli”, requesting the release of the four innocent parents who are racked with pain over their loss. We ask that the institutions, for once, supply them with a means of support, and that the investigators seek out the racist criminals who murdered the young Roma children. It will be a way to remember the little victims and oppose these new racists.

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