| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Ethnic clash averted in southern Russia |
| 2005-08-20 |
| Russia sent troops and armoured vehicles to halt days of ethnic clashes between Chechen refugees and local residents in a southern village on Friday, in the third such stand-off involving Chechens this month. Officials from the Astrakhan region, which lies north of the Caspian Sea, told local media the clash was provoked by Chechens killing a man from Kalmykia, a Buddhist region on the steppes north of Chechnya. "On the night of Aug. 16 a group of Chechens numbering 50 individuals came to the village of Yandyki and started to beat up Kalmyks," Yakov Fenkov, head of the part of the Astrakhan region that includes the village, told Interfax news agency. He said a young man died that night of bullet wounds. "After his burial in the village about 300 people, mainly ethnic Kalmyks, created mass disturbances, beating people up and burning Chechens' houses," Fenkov said. Television footage showed armoured personnel carriers and trucks full of troops rolling into the village, while special forces troops stood guard on street corners. Several houses were gutted, with just their chimneys still standing. Local media reported 12 men had been detained. Since the start of the separatist war in Chechnya in 1994, many ethnic Chechens have fled the fighting in their southern homeland to live all over Russia. Ethnic Chechens face regular police checks and discrimination throughout Russia. Friday's clashes were the third major ethnic stand-off this month involving Chechens outside their homeland, where separatist guerrillas inflict daily losses on Russian forces. On Aug. 8, hundreds of Cossacks rushed to a village in the southern Rostov region to protect a Cossack leader whose daughter said she had been raped by a young Chechen. Two days earlier, three Chechens were hospitalised in the region of Dagestan after a fight with ethnic Avars sparked by a land dispute, according to local media. Officials in the Astrakhan region blamed the Chechens for provoking the clashes, and said they were considering locals' demands that the Chechens be expelled. "These fights are a continuation of the history of the last year, when a group of Chechens smashed up a graveyard where lads who had fought in Chechnya were buried," Oleg Shein, member of parliament for the Astrakhan region, told Ekho Moskvy radio. "We must strongly suppress any attempted nationalist activities and adopt the toughest possible penalties against those who are to blame for the clashes." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Take the hint Thais. |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-08-20 07:29 |