ROBERT CSORBA grabbed his four-year-old son Robika and ran for his life when the Molotov cocktail hit their home. They did not get far: both were shot dead as soon as they stepped outside. A Budapest court this week sentenced three far-right extremists to life imprisonment without parole for murdering the Csorbas and four other members of Hungary’s Roma minority in a series of attacks between 2008 and 2009. A fourth member of the group received 13 years. The four men had admitted their involvement, but had denied murder. They are likely to appeal.

The killings in northern and eastern Hungary sent a wave of terror through Hungary’s Roma community, which makes up around 8% of the country’s population of 10m. The killers had operated freely for around 14 months. The police investigation was plagued by incompetence and, say Roma activists, a lack of drive to catch the killers. Only with the arrival of FBI profilers was the case solved.

Laszlo Miszori, the judge, said that the killers regarded themselves as vigilantes, bringing order to lawless communities. The violence has abated in Hungary but is rising in the neighbouring Czech Republic. Amnesty International and the European Roma Rights Centre have called on the authorities to protect Roma communities after repeated riots erupted this summer in Ceske Budejovice. The clashes between Roma and non-Roma were egged on by increasingly confident neo-Nazi groups. In Slovakia several towns have erected walls to separate Roma communities from their neighbours. They include Kosice, Slovakia’s second-largest city, which is a European Capital of Culture this year.

This month marked the anniversary of the Roma Holocaust, at the hand of the Nazis, known as the “Poraymus” or “Devouring”. Decades later, Roma are still more likely to live in poverty, be unemployed and suffer from poor health. Many live in shanties on the edge of towns and villages, eking out a living in shacks that lack electricity, water or sewage connections, in conditions that are more often seen in the developing world than in modern European democracies. They suffer widespread discrimination and hatred. The causes are deep, complex and will probably take decades to loose their sting.

Lacking education and skills, Roma often remain marginalised and sink into long-term unemployment, which breeds a cycle of poverty, welfare-dependence and, sometimes, petty crime. Their communities struggle to come to terms with the modern world. Roma society tends to be atomised, without recognised leaders who can negotiate with outside authorities. Many poor Roma are exploited by thuggish moneylenders inside their own community, who hand out cash at interest rates so high that the loans can never be repaid. The moneylenders then demand families’ welfare payments as soon as they arrive. Youngsters are rarely encouraged to study, but instead are pressed to marry young and have many children, perpetuating the circle of welfare-dependence.

The Hungarian government has produced a Europe-wide strategy to integrate Roma, drawing rare praise from the European Commission for its initiative. But activists say that Hungary, like its neighbours, pays only lip-service to it. Roma children are frequently classified as mentally handicapped, even if they are not. About half of Roma children are segregated and receive a substandard education, says Andras Ujlaky of the Chance for Children Foundation, a campaigning group which has brought legal actions against several local authorities. Court rulings against desegregation are not enforced. Yet in Hodmezovasarhely, a city in southern Hungary, local authorities have desegregated education with enormous success, says Mr Ujlaky.

Without a decent education, Roma will never be able to better themselves. Their average life expectancy is 10-12 years less than for non-Roma. It is an enormous waste of human potential.