Immigration status of the dead

The Guardian sums up reports from the Khovanskoye cemetery in the South-West of Moscow, a most unlikely location, one would think, for violence of this sort:

At least three people were killed on Saturday when a mass brawl involving hundreds of people erupted at a Moscow cemetery…

At least 23 have been taken to hospital… four of them severely [injured]. Police have made more than 90 arrests…

The RIA news agency reported a cemetery official as saying that people from Russia’s North Caucasus regions of Chechnya and Dagestan had attacked migrants from ex-Soviet Uzbekistan and Tajikistan working there… TASS news agency said ethnic Chechens, Dagestanis, Uzbeks and Tajiks were among those detained.

I have heard a Moscow radio station report that police will be checking whether Moscow cemeteries are complying with immigration laws. Obviously, this means checking the immigration status of cemetery employees, but the wording – a case of unintentional black humor – makes one think of the deceased. It has also been reported that the fighting parties broke tombstones and used them as weapons.

The details are bizarre; the underlying reality is merely frightening.

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