Hungary has created its first national police task force to combat crimes against Roma, after a rise in armed attacks on the country's impoverished minority.

Fifty officers are investigating 16 unsolved cases in the past two years, all involving guns, petrol bombs or grenades.

Four Roma were killed last month in two separate attacks, making it the worst month of violence in recent years. Two were shot dead in the northeastern village of Nagycsecs while trying to flee their house after it was firebombed.

A man and a woman died and their children were injured after a grenade was thrown through their window in the southern city of Pecs.

Police are so far unable to say whether the attacks were racially motivated but do not rule it out. Some of the violence may be Roma-on-Roma crime.

Erno Kallai, Hungary's minority and human rights ombudsman, said it appeared that Roma were being targeted deliberately. “Roma, who live on the periphery of society, who are most vulnerable, who are subject of prejudice, are under attack,” he said.

Between 7 and 8 per cent of Hungary's population of ten million are Roma. Many live in grinding poverty, especially in the countryside where villages have separate Roma settlements that often lack running water, heating, electricity or sewerage.

None of Hungary's post-communist governments have tried seriously to tackle the Roma's appalling living conditions and lack of economic opportunity.

This continuing neglect, and the Roma's own failure to develop effective communal leadership, is a disaster in the making, analysts say.

Hungary's economic crisis is exacerbating the situation. Even with the $25 billion (£16.4 billion) bailout, led by the International Monetary Fund, the Government has announced cuts in pensions and public sector wages, and tens of thousands of jobs are likely to be lost next year.

The violence follows an upsurge in activity by the Hungarian far Right, especially the Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard), whose members dress in black uniforms.

The Garda has largely avoided targeting Jews, Eastern Europe's traditional scapegoats.

Anti-Semitism is not part of mainstream Hungarian politics and occasional outbursts are widely condemned.

Instead the Garda focuses on highlighting what it describes as “Roma crime” and parades through villages calling for Roma to be segregated.

Electoral support for the far Right is minimal, at 2 or 3 per cent, and it lost all its seats in parliament in 2002. But fomenting hatred against Roma could prove fruitful.

A study published in October by Political Capital, a think-tank, gave warning that the growing tension between Roma and non-Roma was Hungary's “most important social conflict”.

Anti-Roma hatred is rising across the region. Sixteen people were injured after violent clashes in the Czech city of Litvinov this month. Seven hundred far-right protesters attempted to march into the Roma neighbourhood of Janov but were prevented by riot police.

The answer, say analysts, is to focus on developing education and employment opportunities to ensure that Roma have a stake in society. The British and American ambassadors to Hungary recently began a publicity campaign aimed at countering anti-Roma stereotypes and recruiting more Roma youth to the police force.

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