Seven people were arrested on Sunday night in connection with the attack on an ambulance in Recea-Cristur, Cluj County, Romanian authorities said. A court in Dej ordered 30-day pretrial detention for six men and one woman, with the woman additionally charged with assault after prosecutors alleged she threw a rock that shattered the ambulance’s windshield and injured the driver’s eye, requiring surgery.
The attack occurred around 10:24 p.m. on Aug. 8, when the ambulance, transporting a patient, was blocked by two cars and assailed with stones, axes and clubs by a group of locals. The crew had earlier stopped to ask for directions and noticed residents filming them and reacting with alarm, according to the Department for Emergency Situations. Despite the assault, the medical team completed the mission and delivered the patient to a hospital in Dej.
Authorities linked the violence to a viral TikTok video falsely claiming a “black ambulance” was kidnapping children in the area. Investigators said the suspects admitted they believed the disinformation and acted to stop what they thought was a child abduction. The ambulance bore the standard markings of Romania’s emergency services, including the 112 emergency number.
Deputy Prime Minister Oana Gheorghiu condemned the incident in a Sunday night interview with Digi24, calling it “absolutely shocking” that people would attack an ambulance based on online falsehoods. “It is absolutely shocking that people have reached this level of action after some disinformation, that they have come to believe things on TikTok to the point of stopping an ambulance and assaulting the staff,” Gheorghiu said .
Gheorghiu called for legislative measures to hold individuals accountable for spreading harmful disinformation, including politicians who use false or alarmist claims for populist ends. “We need to do something in terms of legislation regarding people’s responsibility for disinformation,” she said, adding that social media platforms may need stricter identity verification to tie users to their posts .
Cluj-Napoca Mayor Emil Boc also denounced the attack, describing it as an act of violence against “those who save our lives” and demanding “exemplary punishment” for the perpetrators. Boc emphasized the role of education in combating misinformation, stating that people must learn to distinguish between manipulated social media content and factual reality. “We need to educate children and the wider public about what exists on social media. Not everything there is true and should be followed,” he said in a Facebook video .
Former Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete warned that freedom of expression should not extend to turning lies into weapons, noting that legal measures alone may not suffice to protect emergency workers from such incidents .
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