- Title: RUSSIA: Memorial service held for victims of 2011 airport bombing
- Date: 25th January 2012
- Summary: VARIOUS AIRPORT OFFICIALS BRINGING FLOWERS TO MEMORIAL SITE FLOWERS AND CANDLES OFFICIALS AT MEMORIAL SITE VARIOUS FLOWERS, CANDLES AND PORTRAIT
- Embargoed: 9th February 2012 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Russian Federation
- Country: Russia
- Topics: Crime
- Reuters ID: LVA1DLYFD37D0CODDN6DMA00UC2Y
- Story Text: Moscow's Domodedovo airport holds a memorial service one year after a bombing killed 37 and injured hundreds of others.
A memorial service was held at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Tuesday (January 24) in memory of the victims of a suicide bombing which killed 37 people a year ago.
A blast in arrivals hall of Domodedovo international airport killed 37 people, and injured over 100 more, including foreigners, during a busy late afternoon on January 24, 2011.
One year after the event Russian Orthodox priests performed a memorial service in the airport's chapel, and mourners gathered to lay flowers at the bombing site in the terminal.
Russia's Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said that Chechen militant Doku Umarov was behind the blast which, according to Russian officials, was executed by the 20-year-old suicide bomber Magomed Yevloyev, a native of the North Caucasus.
"The investigators have detected that the terrorist act was organised by the leader of the 'Emirate of the Caucasus' criminal organization, Doku Umarov, under whom the so-called 'Battalion of Suicide Bombers' worked with the leadership of Aslan Bityukaev, who went by the nickname Khamzad, and Supyan Abdulaev under the nickname Rizhy Supyan. It was them who, according to (our) investigation, chose and prepared Magomed Yevloyev to execute the bombing. Altogether there were around 35 people in the organised criminal group (which organised the bombing)," Markin said.
Umarov has claimed responsibility for the act, saying that he ordered the bombing.
On Tuesday, among the mourners gathered to remember victims of the act, was an Intourist travel agency employee, Marina Babenka, who has been at Domodedovo when the bomb exploded.
"On that day (when the bomb exploded) an interpreter of Japanese was killed. He was meeting a group from Tokyo here, and so were we as representatives of Intourist, and I, personally, laid some flowers (at the memorial)," Marina said.
Another woman, Anna, was not there when the blast happened, but her acquaintance was flying out from Domodedovo on that day. Although her acquaintance was not hurt in the blast, Anna said she still got goosebumps remembering the day.
"You know, when you reminded me (of the bombing), I got goosebumps. I don't even want to remember it. They (the bombers) are some sort of monsters. I will not say (what I think) on TV," Anna said.
In his video address after the suicide bombing carried by the Islamist website www.Kavkazcenter.com, Umarov, 46, said there would be further such attacks in pursuit of an independent Muslim state governed by Sharia law in Russia's Caucasus region - a territory embracing Chechnya, Dagestan and other nearby territories.
A decade after federal forces drove separatists out of power in the second of two wars in Chechnya, the North Caucasus is plagued by violence the Kremlin has failed to quell or contain.
Impoverished Ingushetia - a sliver of land next to Chechnya - was the heart of the insurgency two years ago, though the epicentre of violence has now moved to Dagestan. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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