MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - The number of labor migrants placed in a tent camp in Moscow ahead of their deportation from Russia for violating migration rules has exceeded 500, police said on Sunday.
“As of 11:30 Moscow time [07:30 GMT] on Sunday, 544 foreigners are staying in the tent camp awaiting their deportation,” the police said.
Some 1,400 foreigners, most of them Vietnamese nationals, have been detained earlier this week during marketplace raids that targeted labor migrants throughout Moscow. A tent camp was set up for them in the eastern Golyanovo district because the city ran out of places to keep them.
Moscow police press service told RIA Novosti on Saturday that the number of “guests” in the camp that consists of some 200 green tents capable of hosting up to 900 people reached 500 by late Saturday.
Most of the detained migrant laborers reportedly lived and worked in illegal conditions within buildings raided by police. All the migrants, reportedly also including eight suspected bosses from Iraq, Syria, Vietnam and Azerbaijan, have been detained on suspicion of immigration offenses.
Revenues from oil exports and dwindling labor force made Russia a magnet for millions of labor migrants, mostly from ex-Soviet Central Asia.
Some 11.3 million foreigners entered Russia this year, and some 3 million of them work here illegally, Federal Migration Service chief Konstantin Romodanovsky said in late July.
Labor migration has triggered xenophobia and hate attacks and has become a focal point in the run-up to Moscow’s mayoral election set for early September.
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