2 Killed as Skinheads Attack Gypsy Camp in Central Russia

A group of skinheads armed with steel rods attacked a gypsy camp in the central Russian city of Volzhsky, killing two people, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported on Friday.

The agency quoted local prosecutors as saying that the attack took place at 23-00 local time on Thursday. Skinheads assaulted the gypsies who lived in tents on the bank of the Akhtuba river and beat them with metal rods used in construction. Two gypsies, a man and a woman were killed. Two more victims were taken to hospital in a serious condition.

Police detained three of the attackers, all of them young men. Prosecutors said that those detained were thought to belong to a local skinhead group.

A criminal case has been opened under the article “murder of two or more persons motivated by national, racial or religious hatred or by a blood feud,” prosecutors said.