The tensions in the Roma-populated districts in Bulgaria's Plovdiv have subsided Sunday night after a rumor has been exposed as false, according to local media.

As of 7:30 pm local time, the ethnic tensions in Plovdiv have subsided, local news site Plovdiv24.bg reported.

Just minutes earlier, several local media reported an escalation of the tensions as the Roma living in the Stolipinovo quarter in Bulgaria's Plovdiv started to arm themselves amidst escalating ethnic tensions.

Roma from across Stolipinovo, the largest Roma quarter in Bulgaria, and other Roma-inhabited quarters – Adzhasan Mahala and Sheker Mahala – were to be arming themselves with sticks and shovels Sunday night in the aftermath of the incident in the village of Katunitsa where the murder of a 19-year-old Bulgaria led the local ethnic Bulgarians to revolt against the clan of notorious Roma boss Kiril Rashkov over the past couple of days.

Reports say, the tension in the Roma quarters in Plovdiv was generated by two Roma clans that are close to Rashkov by spreading the rumor that a local Roma man was murdered in downtown Plovdiv, and that activists of the nationalist party VMRO were preparing to set a local mosque on fire.

This led Roma in Stolipinovo, Sheker Mahala, and Adzhasan Mahala to "mobilize" and arm themselves with whatever they could find. Hundreds of Roma even went out of their homes and blocked a road running along the Maritsa River.

The tensions was defused in the last moment by representatives of the local police, the district administration and the ethnic Turkish party DPS, which has a strong following in Stolipinovo who told the locals that the rumors about the murdered Roma man are untrue.

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