In a shocking incident that transpired in April, two Romani women, aged 27 and 38, hailing from Přeštice in the Plzeň region, verbally assaulted and brutally attacked a young Bulgarian woman, mistakenly assuming her to be Ukrainian. The assailants, hurling hateful words such as ‘Return to Ukraine; we won’t support you here,’ subjected the victim to a harrowing ordeal. The aftermath of this vicious attack has now seen one of the perpetrators sentenced to a ten-month prison term, suspended for two years, by the Plzeň-South District Court. The second assailant awaits a final verdict.

The appalling incident unfolded at a playground situated near the Preštice shipyard, along the banks of the Úhlava River near the town center. It was preceded by a heated verbal altercation, during which the accused forcibly threw the victim to the ground. Once on the ground, the victim endured repeated blows to her head, vicious kicks, and even had a lock of hair yanked from her head by one of the assailants. The severity of the assault, the frequency of the blows, and the targeted areas left no doubt that the victim faced the risk of severe bodily harm.

The assault took place in the presence of at least six adults and four children, with one brave individual having to intervene to separate the combatants. Subsequently, the local police arrived on the scene to de-escalate the situation, but they were met with a barrage of verbal abuse from the two attackers. The aggressors accused the officers of bias and neglecting their duty to protect their own people, even resorting to threats of setting the police station on fire.

The Bulgarian victim, who has been a resident of the Czech Republic for over a decade, was left traumatized by the incident. She described being subjected to derogatory slurs such as “scum” and “slut” and was repeatedly told to return to Ukraine, despite her attempts to clarify her actual nationality. The altercation initially erupted over a dispute between their children on a slide, with the victim attempting to mediate. However, the assailants stubbornly clung to their misguided belief that she was Ukrainian.

An eyewitness, Michal T., corroborated the brutality of the attack, attributing it to mistaken assumptions about the victim’s nationality. He characterized the incident as unusually violent. Fortunately, a courageous young boy playing on the playground intervened promptly, separating the attackers from the foreign woman. Police officers later arrived and managed to restrain the assailants, enduring further insults in the process.

Having verified the identities of the perpetrators and recorded witness statements, the police left the two women at the scene. Michal T. concluded by noting that he had not seen the women in the area since the incident, but the scars left by this shocking act of violence continue to resonate in the community.

Article by Prague Forum