Around 20 graves in Jewish cemetery vandalized in northeastern Hungary

BUDAPEST, Hungary – The leader of a small Hungarian Jewish community says about 20 graves have been vandalized in a Jewish cemetery.

Peter Weisz says the damage to the graves in the northeastern city of Gyongyos, including the scattering of human remains, was "unprecedented."

The office of Prime Minister Viktor Orban condemned the "barbaric deed" and vowed to launch a program this year to renovate neglected cemeteries.

Weisz said a number of graves dating as far back as the late 1800s were of ancestors of some of the 80 current members of the recently re-established Jewish community in Gyongyos. Weisz said relations with other religious groups in the city of 30,000 people were "exemplary."

In 2014, Hungary commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust, when 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed.