The police have forwarded to local prosecutors in Koprivnica documents collected in an investigation prompted by a report about the illegal demolition of an unlegalised Roma settlement in Drnje after its residents were temporarily relocated during a recent flood.

The police did not reveal if they suspected anyone of having demolished the settlement.

According to unofficial sources, the documentation collected is sizeable and the prosecutors will have a hard time establishing what actually happened when the Roma houses in the settlement, located by the Drava River, were torn down with machinery.

Its residents were not in their homes at the time because they were staying with their relatives or in the local sports hall where they were moved due to the consequences of a recent flood.

The Roma believe someone used their absence to ruthlessly destroy their homes.

Seven families – 16 adults and 17 children – had lived in the more than 150-year-old settlement.

They say the settlement was destroyed without any announcement or warning over the last weekend, so they did not manage to salvage any of the furniture or household appliances.

The criminal report against an unidentified perpetrator was filed by the head of the Roma association “Korak po korak”, Franjo Horvat, who has referred, on behalf of the Roma community, to adverse possession even though the settlement occupies one private and two state-owned plots.

Roma minority MP Veljko Kajtazi has announced that he will visit Drnje on Monday in the company of a representative of the Government Office for Human and Minority Rights. Kajtazi has also called on Deputy Prime Minister Anja Simpraga to visit Drnje.