12 April, 2006
A Senegalese student has been shot dead outside a St. Petersburg club with a gun bearing the Nazi's Swastika symbol. The murder of Lamzar Samba, 28, a St. Petersburg Communications University student, outside a nightclub of the second-largest Russian city was met with angry protests by the African community. Around 3,000 students, many of them of African origin, marched through the city center to protest a series of racially motivated attacks in recent months. Three weeks ago, a nine-year-old girl of mixed race was stabbed by suspected racists in an apartment building. She survived the attack. In the Samba murder case, police have detained the suspected killer. In his Passover greetings to the Jewish community, Russia's president Vladimir Putin has vowed that "state and society should join forces to firmly and consistently stand up against anti-Semitism and any other manifestations of xenophobia and extremism."
