Friday, April 15, 2011

'Underground town' of migrants found in Moscow

Ultranationalists obscure their faces as they march in Moscow in 2005Police in Moscow have discovered what they are calling an "underground town" housing illegal immigrants from Central Asia in a Soviet-era bomb shelter in the west of the city.

The discovery was made by police and agents from the FSB security agency and Federal Migration Service.

The underground area was guarded by a four-metre-high [13 feet] concrete wall and barbed wire, said Andrei Mishel of the Russia's ministry of the interior.

It housed 110 men and women.

"The living areas were fitted with bathrooms, bedrooms and even prayer rooms," Mr Mishal added.

Similar subterranean living quarters were also uncovered in February under an official delegation room in the capital's Kievsky railway station. The people found there were also described as illegal immigrants.

The shadowy nature of foreign migration to Moscow was underlined at the end of 2010 by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who said that around 250,000 work migrants were registered in the Russian capital, but that the real number was closer to "several million".

Last year around 10,000 illegal migrants were deported from Russia following court decisions against them.According to official accounts, the migrants living in the underground town were working on producing blades and needles for sewing machines. ...

via BBC News - 'Underground town' of migrants found in Moscow.

It is hard to imagine that the working conditions were any good. Sounds like a secret slave camp.

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