On Saturday evening a crowd will gather in Budapest to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the murder of five-year-old Robika Csorba and his father Robert, victims of a murderous series of attacks on Roma settlements across Hungary in 2008 and 2009. Six Roma were slain and over 50 others wounded in the wave of far-right terror, which left the maimed and the bereaved severely traumatized.
After midnight on 23 February 2009, in the village of Tatárszentgyörgy, attackers first threw Molotov cocktails, setting the Csorba family home ablaze. On hearing the bangs, Robert grabbed his two eldest children, while his partner took the youngest child Maté. As Robert fled the burning house, holding Robika close to his chest and Bianka by his side, a waiting gunman opened fire hitting all three. Only Bianka would survive.
His grandmother said, “I was holding Robi’s head in my lap, and he kept saying ‘le, le, le’ meaning he was shot but he couldn’t get the whole word out. My little grandson was gasping with his eyes closed. With tears rolling down his face. Putting so many shots into such a small child barely 11 kilos. May their lungs dry up.”
