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Roma death toll mounts

By Liz Fekete

1 August 1997

The Human Rights Project reports that in the month of February alone, two Roma were shot and killed by the police and another Roma died after police officers beat him.

There are also calls for an investigation of the killing in Rakovski of a Romani woman by a Bulgarian security guard.

Security guard shoots dead 18-year-old Romani

The ERRC has written to the Bulgarian chief prosecutor calling for an investigation after an 18-year-old Romani woman, Petra Anguelova Stoyanova was shot dead by a security guard at the railway station in the town of Rakovski, district Plovdi.

Suspected of stealing corn

Stoyanova worked at the railway station, alongside other Roma women and children, cleaning wagons used for transporting corn. Their boss allowed them to gather the corn which remained in the wagon after it had been unloaded. But the security guard at the railway station did not believe them, even though the boss was at hand and confirmed this. The guard, on seeing the women with several bags of corn, took out his rifle, loaded with rubber bullets, and fired twice, hitting Petra Stoyanova. As she lay on the ground, he proceeded to beat her with the butt of the rifle. She managed to get to her feet but, when she attempted to run away, the security guard fired again, this time with real bullets. Petra Stoyanova died at the scene of the shootings.

Official indifference

In March 1997, the 19-year-old security guard received a suspended sentence of two years and five months' imprisonment. A letter written by the ERRC to the Bulgarian criminal prosecutor in December 1996 remains unanswered.

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