Ethnic riots spark in Russian town after Roma teenager kills woman taxi driver

In Korkino, a town in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, riots broke out after a Roma teenager murdered a woman taxi driver. The 17-year-old suspect in the murder was detained.

Photo: flickr.com by Montecruz Foto, CC BY-SA 2.0

When a crowd of people came to the house where the Roma lived, a person inside the house fired his gun at them. The shooter was arrested. He fired a firearm at two men, aged 37 and 29. The victims were taken to the hospital with injuries.

Riots broke out in Korkino on October 24 after the murder of a female taxi driver, Elena Sarafanova. According to local media reports, the taxi driver received an order from the "Gypsy neighbourhood". A conflict sparked between the passenger and the driver at some point of the ride. The passenger, a 17-year-old gypsy, pulled out a knife and stabbed the woman four times, killing her.

Some time later, when the news about the murder of the woman spread, a crowd of Korkino residents surrounded the house where, presumably, the suspected murderer lived. People started throwing rocks at the house smashing windows. Someone inside the house opened fire at the crowd, injuring two men. The people dispersed after midnight.

Click here to see more videos from the scene.

In the course of the unrest, the people started turning over and setting fire to the cars that they thought belonged to gypsies. Two houses were set on fire as well.

The entrance to the town was blocked from at least one side. The riot police arrived at the scene, several rioters were arrested.

Details

Korkino is a town and the administrative center of Korkinsky District in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern slope of the Southern Ural Mountains, 42 kilometers (26 mi) south of Chelyabinsk, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: 38,597 (2010 Census); 41,501 (2002 Census); 45,198 (1989 Soviet census). It was founded as a village of the same name in the second half of the 18th century. It was granted town status on October 2, 1942.

The Romani people are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Roma originated in the Indian subcontinent, in particular the region of Rajasthan. Their first wave of westward migration is believed to have occurred sometime between the 5th and 11th centuries. They are thought to have arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century. Although they are widely dispersed, their most concentrated populations are believed to be in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. In the English language, Romani people have long been known by the exonym Gypsies or Gipsies, which many Roma consider a racial slur. The attendees of the first World Romani Congress in 1971 unanimously voted to reject the use of all exonyms for the Roma, including "Gypsy". However, it is not considered a slur in the UK and Romani people in the United Kingdom commonly refer to themselves as "Gypsies".