Köllő Katalin and other company directors Local chaplain The 2020 Ditrău xenophobic incident refers to the incident that started on 26 January 2020 in the village of Ditrău (Hungarian: Ditró), Harghita County, in Romania, in which around 1,800 ethnically Hungarian locals protested the employment of two, later three, Sri Lankan workers by the bakery Ditrói Pékség.

Other previous cases that happened in other cities began to receive more attention, and there were some conflicts between the country's Romanian ethnic majority and the Hungarian minority.

On 3 March, Kelemen Hunor, president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), announced that the situation had finally normalized.

Due to the large number of Romanian citizens that have emigrated from Romania, several companies have been left without sufficient human resources, which has led them to hire immigrants.

[5] Locals mainly watch, read and listen to Hungarian media close to the country's government, causing the transmission of liberalist doctrinal elements to them.

[6] On the other hand, according to the newspaper Átlátszó Erdély, in Székely Land, many companies pay their employees with salaries that they consider "indecent", which contributes to the emigration of qualified human resources.

[6] Journalist and sociologist Ruxandra Hurezean said there were indications that several Hungarian local leaders were rejecting investment in counties like Harghita (where Ditrău is located), as it could boost immigration to the region and affect its ethnic composition.

A study has shown that of all Transylvania, Harghita and Covasna (both with a large Hungarian population) are the counties with the least amount of foreign capital invested.

[9] Ditrói Pékség, in Ditrău, is a bakery built with funds from the European Community, which was in need of additional human resources at the time.

[10] Almost two weeks after the employment of the two Sri Lankan bakers by the company in question, their presence led to a riot of a part of the community in Ditrău, which saw them as a threat to the village.

[6] For two days, in the discussions carried out on the platform, nationalist and racist threats were made at the Sri Lankan employees and the bakery owners.

The 200 locals continued protesting in the courtyard of a church,[6] where the chaplain organized a meeting on the fate of the Székelys and the injustices suffered by them.

[13] The financial newspaper Ziarul Financiar stated that, based on the public data of the company, the 90 workers were being paid the minimum wage.

[13] Fearing that the incident might escalate,[16] the employers announced that, although both workers would be retained, they would be transferred to a different stage of the production process.

In addition, they also informed the locals that if enough workers could be hired from nearby areas in the next half-year, the bakery would stop looking for people abroad.

[18][19] On 2 February, after the National Council for Combating Discrimination ordered to be notified in case of relocation of the two Sri Lankans to another stage of the production, the company directors announced that the workers would retain their initial work.

Apologies were sought by the locals and the chaplain for "damage to their reputation", as well as financial compensation to harmed and offended workers for 5 years.

[27] On 3 March, the president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), Kelemen Hunor, declared that things had finally calmed down.

[5] The incident attracted great attention from the ethnic Romanian public, who began to discuss the "export of ideologies" given by the government of Viktor Orbán.

[30] According to the journalist Răzvan Bibire, the incident also presents an opportunity to start discussing at a national level the overexploitation suffered by many employees and the difficulties they have in defending their labor rights.