Hungarian police have detained four men on suspicion of carrying outattacks in which at least six Roma, or Gypsies as they are also called,were killed. The violence hasunderscored growing ethnic tension in the European Union nation.

Hungarianpolice say the men, aged 28 to 42, were captured Friday in the easterncity of Debrecen on suspicion of involvement in deadly attacks againstGypsies, who prefer to be known as Roma.

National police chiefJozsef Bencze has told reporters that evidence seized during housesearches and at different crime scenes link the suspects to acts ofdeadly violence within the past year.  

He says police haveappropriate evidence to link the men to the killings. Bencze adds thatracism appears to have been the main motive. He has described theattacks, as the "biggest, most complicated and most serious series ofmurders in the history of Hungarian criminology."
 
The killings were carried out mainly in small countryside villages predominantly settled by Roma.

InFebruary, in what was seen as one of the most brutal attacks on Roma,police said Robert Csorba and his five-year-old son were shot dead whenthey tried to flee their home that was set on fire.

Hismother, Erzsebet Csorba, lives next to the destroyed home where shelost her son and grandson, on a muddy road in the Hungarian village ofTatarszentgyorgy, 65 kilometers outside Budapest.

She tells VOA that she will never forget what happened that night.

"Iwoke up from hearing three shots outside in the garden," said Csorba."And I woke up my husband also because I wanted to go with him to seewhat happened. When we came out here outside of the door, we sawimmediately the burning house of my son."

"So I ran around thehouse and here on the side of the house there is a little forest and Ifound my son. "They shot me down, they shot me down," were the lastwords that he said. And we also found the little boy. His whole smallbody was full with holes from the bullets. He was still breathing," sheadded.

Relatives of Maria Balogh, a Gypsy (Roma) woman who was shot dead four days ago, comfort their mother, Mariska, during the funeral in Kisleta, Hungary, 07 Aug 2009In one of the cases this month, a 45-year-old Roma womanwas killed in the eastern village of Kisleta and her 13-year-olddaughter was seriously injured when police say gunmen broke into theirhome at night and shot the victims in their sleep.

TheBudapest-based European Roma Rights Center, or ERRC, suggests that theattacks to which detained suspects are linked are no isolatedincidents. ERRC Programmes Coordinator Tara Bedard has told VOA Newsthere have been dozens of attacks against the approximately 800,000Roma living in Hungary.

"There's been 30 attacks in the lasttwo years. And that we know off, I believe that seven people havedied," said Bedard. "I think the most frequent type of attack that hasbeen occurring in the past is people showing up with Molotov cocktailsand throwing them into or at the homes of Roma in several towns of thecountry.

Some human rights groups and Roma leaders say theattacks come at a time when right-wing extremists are searching forscapegoats for Hungary's current economic crisis.

Far rightgroups targeting what they call "Gypsy crime" have become increasinglypopular in Hungary, adding to international concerns over ethnictensions in this European Union nation.