Budapest - Maria Balogh, the 45-year-old Roma woman who was gunned down in her home before dawn on Monday, was laid to rest in the remote Hungarian village of Kisleta on Friday. Over five hundred mourners, among them several public figures, came to pay their respects to the latest victim in a spate of armed attacks against Hungarian Roma, or Gypsies, that began last summer.
Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai did not attend but issued a statement saying the perpetrators' actions were condemned by the whole of Hungarian society.
"Today I share the pain of the victims' relatives and friends, as well as the concern of my Roma countrymen," Bajnai said.
Balogh's 13-year-old daughter, whose upper body and head were peppered with gunshot from close range in the attack, was still in hospital after undergoing lifesaving surgery.
The police have come under pressure from opposition politicians to explain their apparent lack of progress towards identifying and apprehending the killers.
At the request of Justice Minister Tibor Draskovics, the reward for information leading to capture of the murderers was increased to a record 100 million forints (530,000 dollars).
Prime Minister Bajnai, after meeting police and National Bureau of Investigation top brass earlier in the week, said the government would provide whatever resources law enforcers needed to end the murderous crime wave.
A parliamentary law-and-order committee convened for an extraordinary session behind closed doors on Thursday to discuss ways to deal with a crisis that is increasing tension and fear between ethnic Hungarians and the estimated 7 per cent Roma minority.
The latest attack in Kisleta brought the number of those killed to six. A further 49 have found themselves the targets of armed attacks since last summer, incuding the petrol bombing and shooting of 16 homes occupied by Roma families, police said in a statement.
