38 arrested as Romanian police free ‘slaves’, kept in chains and forced to fight

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A woman in Gamacesti, Romania, shows bruises on a man's body, allegedly from being hit by police during Wednesday’s raid on the homes of people suspected of enslaving vulnerable boys and young men. Photo: AP

Published: 10:23am, 15 Jul 2016Updated: 9:20pm, 15 Jul 2016

Romanian authorities remanded 38 people in custody on Thursday suspected of holding dozens of vulnerable young men and boys as slaves, chaining them up and forcing them to fight, authorities said.

They were arrested followed large-scale police raids on Wednesday in Berevoesti, 170km north of Bucharest, when five people including two boys aged 10 and 12 were freed.

The captives were “attached with chains and straps... beaten [and] humiliated”, starved of food and fed on scraps, prosecutors from the DIICOT organised crime investigation unit said.

They were “left fully naked, cold and hot water being thrown alternatively on them. Their hands and feet were tied and they were told to eat off the ground or to fight each other to amuse the suspects,” they said.

People sit on a wooden bench outside their home in Gamacesti, Romania, on Thursday, a day after a large police raid on the homes of people suspected of enslaving vulnerable individuals. Photo: AP

Since 2008, some 40 victims were “captured in public places, near churches or train stations, or at their homes” and forced to do household chores, look after animals and do illegal logging, prosecutors said.

Ninety people from Gamacesti, a Roma district within the municipality of Berevoesti in the Arges region, were initially thought to have been involved.