MOSCOW, October 14 (RIA Novosti) – Almost 400 people were detained and six riot police injured during a night of anti-migrant violence in a southern Moscow suburb sparked by protests over a recent murder.
Helicopters and over a thousand police officers were dispatched to Birilyevo in Moscow’s Southern District on Sunday afternoon as violence flared, and crowds began attacking police lines and local businesses after a young Russian man was knifed to death last week by a suspect believed by rioters to be non-Russian.
A total of 380 people were detained overnight, according to policem and 23 people sought medical help as a result of the disturbances, according to the Health Ministry. Police said that six riot police officers were injured in the skirmishes, and two have been hospitalized.
“Bottles and stones were flying from all sides, people were prepared,” said Stanislav Tumakov, a police lieutenant colonel injured in the confrontation, Russian website LifeNews reported.
Several small stores were damaged in the violence, and media pictures from the area showed overturned cars surrounded by smashed watermelons. Footage showed a group of protestors chanting nationalist slogans and breaking into one shop, smashing glass and setting off smoke bombs.
Police said late Monday morning that 308 of the 380 detained during the dsiturbances would be released without charge, 70 will face administrative charges and be required to appear in court, and two will be detained for 48 hours on criminal charges.
Officials said about 1,000 people took part in the evening protest, which involved local residents, football fans and nationalist activists, according to local media.
The disorder apparently focused on a police headquarters, but nearby stores and a vegetable market were also targeted, apparently in the belief that they employed large numbers of migrant workers, Vedomosti reported.
Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev called a snap meeting shortly after the disorder broke out, the police said on their website. Kolokoltsev was shown on national television ordering police not to make any informal arrangements with criminals provoking the violence.
He also initiated Plan Volcano 5, a contingency arrangement that put Moscow's entire police force on alert to tackle mass unrest, Kommersant reported. The plan, in use for the first time since terrorist attacks on the Moscow metro in 2010, was cancelled early Monday morning as the disorder appeared to subside.
The protests in Birilyevo, which began Saturday, were apparently triggered by the fatal stabbing of Yegor Shcherbakov, 25, who police said was walking home with his girlfriend Thursday when he was killed. Police have said the murderer was "not a Russian citizen" and released CCTV footage of a suspect.
Moscow murder protest turns violent. Eyewitness video
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RIA Novosti
Moscow murder protest turns violent. Eyewitness video
In recent years Russia has seen a series of violent protests in reaction to crimes allegedly committed by people from ethnic minorities. Such protests, often aimed at people from the Caucasus region, are motivated by what the protestors perceive as the authorities’ inability, or unwillingness, to hold the perpetrators to account.
Moscow police said Sunday that another incident in the capital’s north, in which about 60 people were detained, was unrelated to the events in southern Moscow.
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