
Two incidents of anti-minority violence took place in Ukraine in November, according to a monthly report submitted today by UCSJ's Kiev monitor Vyacheslav Likhachyov. On November 3 in Dnepropetrovsk, a group of youths attacked two Asian students, one of whom later required an emergency kidney operation as a result. Police detained four teenage suspects on November 20 and charged them with armed robbery and "group hooliganism." Police officials asserted that the attack was not motivated by ethnic hatred.
On November 4 in Zaporozhe, a mass brawl took place involving up to 300 local youths and foreign medical students, predominantly from India. The violent outburst reportedly came about after some youths, reportedly motivated by racism, attacked Indian students the previous day. Both sides promised retaliation the next day and called for reinforcements. Anti-riot police broke up the brawl, but not before two participants were sent to the hospital. Police reportedly are not taking the incident seriously, terming it "minor hooliganism" and are allegedly considering not even filing charges. Some witnesses offered a different version of events, claiming that the brawl had nothing to do with racism and involved fewer people. However, the rector of the local medical school, Yuri Kolesnikov, told the press that: "Lately, attacks on foreign students, especially Indians, have increased."
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