DUSHANBE, August 6, 2013, Asia-Plus — Senior representatives from the Tajik Embassy in Moscow yesterday visited a tent camp for migrants facing deportation. The camp was reportedly set up in the Lyubertsy district, Moscow oblast.
According to the Tajik Embassy in Moscow, ten Tajik nationals are currently being held in the camp for violating migration rules together with citizens of other countries.
“The Tajik nationals held in the camp complained to the representatives of the Embassy about bad conditions and asked to assist with speedy deportation,” the source said.
According to him, Tajik diplomats met with responsible persons of the camp and informed them about complaints of the Tajik nationals.
Meanwhile, some Russian media sources reported on Sunday that the number of labor migrants being placed in the camp ahead of their deportation from Russia for violating migration rules stands at 612. The number of people living in tents has slowly risen in recent days after Moscow police conducted a series of large raids last week aimed at identifying and detaining illegal migrants.
About 1,400 foreigners, most of them Vietnamese nationals, were detained earlier this week during raids on local markets, and the tent encampment was set up for them in Moscow’s eastern Golyanovo district because the city did not have enough places to keep them, RIA Novosit reported on August 5.
A total of 2,400 people were detained by Moscow police last week in raids targeted at illegal migrants, Russian news website gazeta.ru reported Saturday.
The camp reportedly consists of some 200 green tents capable of hosting up to 900 people.
Labor migration has triggered xenophobia and hate attacks and has become a focal point in the run-up to Moscow’s mayoral election set for September 8.
Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) says it wants to create a “network” of 83 detention facilities for foreigners awaiting deportation, just days after it set up a tent camp for hundreds of labor migrants detained in Moscow last week. According to RIA Novosit, (FMS said it will need almost 4,700 new staff for 83 “special facilities” that will operate in 81 Russian regions, according to an explanatory note posted on the government web portal for legal projects Thursday. The agency currently has just 21 such facilities, the note said.
