BISHKEK — Russia’s Federal Migration Directorate is investigating recent clashes between Uzbek and Kyrgyz migrant workers in the central city of Yekaterinburg, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reports.
The Kyrgyz Consulate in Yekaterinburg told RFE/RL on April 11 that Russian authorities are checking if eight Kyrgyz citizens who took part in the clashes are in Russia illegally.
On April 8, several Kyrgyz and Uzbek migrant workers clashed in a cafeteria near a construction site in Yekaterinburg. The brawl was eventually stopped after a foreman called police.
Clashes between Uzbek and Kyrgyz migrant workers in Russia have occurred more often since deadly clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz erupted in Kyrgyzstan’s southern Osh and Jalal-Abad regions in June 2010.
More than 400 men and women were killed in the clashes and hundreds were wounded.
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