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Sixty seven people were killed and more than 550 injured in 39 regions of Russia in 2007 in ethnically motivated crimes, the country's leading rights groups recently reported, highlighting that xenophobia is on the rise.

According to the annual report delivered by SOVA Center rights center which keeps track of hate crimes, the two hotspots for national hate-motivated attacks remain Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In Moscow and its surrounding region, 42 people were killed and 209 were injured during ethnic assaults while in Saint Petersburg the death toll reached 9 victims with 111 people injured.

The victims can be of various nationalities but most often they are of Uzbek, Tajik, Azeri and Armenian backgrounds. Uzbek people were the most hit group in 2007 - 12 people died in hate crimes and 102 were injured.

According to the report by SOVA's deputy director Galina Kozhevnikova, the ethnically motivated crimes are becoming more brutal and are often committed by organized groups orchestrated by ultranationalist parties.

Last year 96 people across the country were prosecuted by authorities, 26 of them receiving prison terms varying from one to five years. 18 people were sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison for hate crimes and eight people were ruled to remain imprisoned from 10 to 15 years. Three people were sentenced to 15-20 years in jail, one person received 25 years in prison and one received a life sentence.

Twenty one people received suspended sentences for their involvement in racial attacks, five people were fined and 13 people were freed from prosecution because they were underage.


The following table showing statistics for 2005-2007 can be found in Kozhevnikova’s report placed at SOVA’s official site http://xeno.sova-center.ru/29481C8/A91EC67

	2005			2006			2007
	Killed	Injured	Total victims	Killed	Injured	Total victims	Killed	Injured	Total victims
Moscow	16	179	195	37	219	257	42	209	251
St.Petersburg	4	45	49	6	53	57	9	111	120
Abakan	0	2	2	0	0	0		2	2
Arkhangelsk	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	3	4
Astrakhan	0	2	2	0	0	0
Barnaul	0	1	1	2	1	3	4	4	8
Belgorod	0	4	4	0	18	18	0	1	1
Birobidzan	3	0	0	0	0	0
Blagoveshchensk	0	7	7	0	1	1
Bryansk	0	1	1	0	1	1	1	2	3
Vladivostok	0	3	3	2	18	20	1	3	4
Vladimir region	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	5
Volgograd	0	1	1	2	9	11	0	5	5
Vologda	0	0	0	0	1	1
Voronezh	1	21	22	1	6	7	0	15	15
Ivanovo	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	4
Izhevsk	0	1	1	0	1	1	1	6	7
Ingushetia	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	3
Irkutsk region	2	5	7	0	8	8	1	53	54
Yoshkar-Ola	0	15	15	0	5	5
Kazan	0	0	0	0	8	8
Kaliningrad	0	2	2	0	11	11	0	1	1
Kaluga	0	11	11	1	3	4
Kirov	0	1	1	0	0	0
Kostroma	0	0	0	0	10	10	0	2	2
Krasnodar region	1	3	4	0	7	7	0	9	9
Krasnoyarsk	1	1	2	0	3	3	0	3	3
Kurgan	0	6	6	0	0	0
Kursk	0	2	2	0	0	0
Lipetsk	0	3	3	1	0	1	0	3	3
Murmansk	0	1	1	0	1	1	0	5	5
Nizhny Novgorod	4	12	16	0	36	36	1	39	40
Novgorod	0	5	5	0	0	0
Novosibirsk	1	9	10	0	9	9	0	4	4
Omsk region	0	0	0	1	3	4	1	1	2
Oryol	0	0	0	0	9	9
Orenburg	0	0	0	1	1	2	1	1	2
Perm	3	2	5	0	0	0	0	3	3
Petrozavodsk	0	2	2	0	0	0
Pskov	0	1	1	0	0	0
Rostov-on-Don	0	10	10	0	2	2	1	7	8
Ryazan	0	1	1	0	4	4	0	6	6
Samara	4	5	9	0	2	2	2	9	11
Saratov	0	0	0	4	4	8	0	1	1
Sverdlovskay Oblast	6	6	12	0	6	6	1	16	17
Smolensk	0	2	2	0	0	0
Stavropol	0	21	21	0	0	0	0	7	7
Syktyvkar	0	4	4	0	4	4
Tambov	0	6	6	0	0	0
Tver region	0	0	0	0	3	3	0	2	2
Tomsk	0	6	6	0	4	4	0	5	5
Tula region	0	3	3	1	2	3
Tyumen region	1	0	1	0	15	15
Ulan-Ude	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
Ufa	0	2	2	0	2	2	0	1	1
Khabarovsk	0	3	3	0	0	0
Cheboksary	0	0	0	0	6	6
Chelyabinsk	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	11	11
Chita region	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	3	3
Yaroslav region	0	0	0	1	6	7	0	2	2
Yakutia	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2
Total	47	418	465	61	502	563	68	566	634