| Situation Update No. 9 Ref.no.: VW-20100329-25500-RUS
Situation Update No. 9
On 2010-03-30 at 16:47:46 [UTC]
Event: Terror Attack
Location: Russia Capital City Lubyanka and Park Kultury METRO Stations Moscow
Number of Deads: 39 person(s)
Number of Injured: 102 person(s)
Situation: Russians today nervously returned to metro stations where two suicide bombers killed 39 people, lighting candles and leaving heaps of carnations at one site as the country began a day of mourning. Yesterday's attacks shocked a country that had grown accustomed to such violence being confined to a restive southern corner — and marked the return of terrorism to the everyday lives of Muscovites after a six-year break. Many have speculated that the blasts, blamed on North Caucasus rebels, were retaliation for the recent killing of separatist leaders in the region by Russian police. Some politicians today called for the return of the death penalty for terrorism, and President Dmitry Medvedev in televised remarks called on judges to consider amending terrorism laws. The city remained on edge, even as people began to commute on the metro again. "I feel the tension on the metro, nobody's smiling or laughing," said university student Alina Tsaritova, not far from the Lubyanka station, one of the targets. The preliminary investigation found that female suicide bombers detonated belts of explosives during yesterday's morning rush-hour at the stations. Five people remain in critical condition out of 71 hospitalised after the blasts, city health department official Andrei Seltsovsky told the Rossiya-24 state news channel. Only eight victims had been formally identified, he said. Some commuters said today they would try and block the events out of their mind completely. "We have to live with this, not to think about it, especially when we're underground," said Tatyana Yerofeyeva, a Muscovite in her early 50s. As public outrage swells, the upper house of parliament is proposing bringing back the death penalty for such crimes, a politician was quoted as saying.
"This is our reaction to yesterday's tragic events," Anatoly Kyskov, the Federation Council's legal committee chairman, said in comments carried by state news agency RIA Novosti. Medvedev called on chairmen from the Supreme Court and the High Court of Arbitration to propose ways to "perfect" terrorism laws. Russia announced a moratorium on capital punishment when it joined the Council of Europe in 1996 and pledged to abolish it, but has not done so. The Kremlin-controlled parliament has been reluctant to fully outlaw executions, due to broad public support for the death penalty. As Moscow mourned, plastic plaques hung in the two metro stations above rickety tables overflowing with flowers; their inscriptions promised permanent replacements. Some people were choked by tears as they laid candles. Flags flew at half staff on government buildings, at the Kremlin, and in other cities across the vast country. Entertainment events and television shows were cancelled, and services were scheduled at several churches. Heightened transportation security remained in effect across the capital and elsewhere. Police with machine guns and sniffer dogs patrolled metro entrances. Yesterday's first explosion took place just before 8am at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow, beneath the notorious headquarters of the Federal Security Service or FSB, the KGB's main successor agency. The FSB is a symbol of power under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who headed the agency before his election as president in 2000.
About 45 minutes later, a second blast hit the Park Kultury station on the same metro line, which is near the renowned Gorky Park. In both cases, the bombs were detonated as the trains pulled into the stations and the doors were opening. Amateur video on Russian TV showed wounded and possibly dead commuters on the floor of the smoke-filled Lubyanka station. One video showed gruesome images of dead passengers sprawled inside a mangled metro car and a bloody leg lying on a station platform. By late yesterday, both stations had been scrubbed clean. Holes left by shrapnel in the granite were the only reminder of the day's tragic bombings. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who built much of his political capital by directing a fierce war against Chechen separatists a decade ago, has promised to track down and kill the organizers of what he called a "disgusting" crime. |
