Migrant workers rounded up after racial unrest
POLICE in Moscow rounded up about 1200 suspected illegal migrants in pre-dawn raids yesterday, hours after violent racist unrest and looting in the Russian capital.
Nationalists broke into a warehouse operated by traders from Central Asia and the Caucasus on Sunday night, smashing windows and shouting ‘‘White Power’’ and anti-Muslim slogans in protest against the killing of a young man.
The victim, named as 25-year-old Yegor Shcherbakov, was stabbed, supposedly by a man from the Caucasus, while walking with his girlfriend in the Biryulevo dis- trict of southern Moscow. Clashes between protesters and police continued late into the night, with 23 people injured and scores arrested.
Yesterday’s swoop on immigrants in Biryulevo mar- ket was ordered by Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the Interior Minister. It seems to presage a more intense crackdown on illegal residents not only from Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, but also Vietnam. ‘‘I am asking the head of the Moscow police and I’m asking all managers who are on duty to deal quickly with these warehouses, bring order, make everyone work according to Russian law, regardless of the region they come from,’’ he told a crisis meeting.
He said the raids were to prevent riots and unrest spreading.
The three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha starts today and the authorities are determined to round-up as many illegal residents as possible before the markets shut. The flare-up follows a summer of police crackdowns.