‘Captives’ rescued in Romanian rural raid
Print Edition
DOZENS of vulnerable men and boys were kidnapped, chained up, whipped, fed scraps of food and forced into manual labor or fighting for entertainment over an eight-year period in rural southern Romania, prosecutors said yesterday.
Three men and two boys aged 10-12 were found chained up and were rescued by police yesterday in the mountain town of Berevoiesti during searches at the homes of suspects — members of an extended Roma family. Some 160 police and prosecutors took part in the raid on the town, some 150 kilometers northwest of Bucharest.
Organized crime prosecutors said the investigation involved some 90 suspects who they say exploited around 40 people with physical and mental disabilities or who were very poor, and made them log wood, beg or look after animals.
A statement said some victims were snatched from railway and bus stations, outside churches or even from their own homes and transported to private homes by members of the group. Some of them performed domestic chores while others were made to transport and sell wood that was the product of illegal logging.
It said the captives were sometimes held in chains, whipped, beaten and threatened, refused food or made to eat off the ground, and coerced into fighting each other for entertainment. There are suspicions some were raped or sexually abused.
Valentin Preoteasa, chief prosecutor at the Pitesti office, called the case unprecedented. “It is shocking to hear this in the 21st century,” he said, adding the victims have been housed in centers and given food, showers and beds. He could not say how many were children.
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