ARMENIAN WOMAN AMONG MOSCOW BOMBING VICTIMS
Arman Hovannisian, Ruzanna Stepanian
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30.03.2010
A teenage Armenian woman was among 39 people killed in twin suicide
bombings on Moscow’s underground railway, the Armenian Foreign Ministry
said on Tuesday.
The explosions, which authorities said were set off by female suicide
bombers linked to Islamist militants from the North Caucasus, ripped
through two metro stations in the city center during the Monday
morning rush hour.
Thirty-eight people were initially reported killed and more than 70
others seriously wounded in what was the deadliest attack on the
Russian capital in six years. A 17-year-old woman, identified as
Valentina Yegiazarian, died of severe injuries in hospital on Tuesday,
bringing the death toll to 39.
Russia — A relative of a victim of terrorist metro blasts cries
outside a morgue in Moscow, 30Mar2010Armenian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Tigran Balayan confirmed her ethnic Armenian origin.
"Unfortunately, there is an Armenian victim who died in hospital
today: the 17-year-old Valentina Yegiazarian," he told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service.
Balayan said two other Russian citizens of Armenian descent,
both of them women, were also injured in the blasts and required
hospitalization. Doctors says their condition is "satisfactory,"
he added.
President Serzh Sarkisian joined world leaders in condemning the
bombings and expressing condolences to Russia’s leadership and families
of the victims. "Armenia resolutely condemns any manifestation of
terrorism," he wrote to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday.
"I am confident that everything will be done to identify and hold
accountable the masterminds [of the attacks,]" said Sarkisian.
Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the culprits must be
scraped "from the bottom of the sewers" and exposed as Moscow observed
an official day of mourning on Tuesday. Flags across the city flew
at half-mast and somber Muscovites laid flowers and lit candles at
the stations hit by the blasts