VORONEZH, March 10 (RIA Novosti) - An Iraqi student was attacked in the city of Voronezh in European Russia, which already has a reputation for race-hate assaults, police said Saturday.
Faris Faleh, 23, who studied at the Technology Academy of Voronezh, said he was beaten in the center of the city late on Friday after he refused to share food products he had bought with three drunken young people.
Prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the incident. They said Faleh had sustained injuries, including concussion but refused to be sent to the hospital.
Three suspects aged 19-20 have been detained, with two of them being Voronezh residents.
A popular destination for foreign undergraduates about 310 miles south of Moscow, Voronezh has recently come to the spotlight as a center of racially motivated crimes.
In October 2005, an Albanian national studying at Voronezh University told police he was beaten up near his dormitory and had his mobile phone and ID card stolen. In January, two men from Sudan were allegedly assaulted at one of the city's bus stops, but reportedly sustained no serious injuries.
A group of teenagers attacked a Vietnamese national, who lived in the town of Ostrogozhsk near Voronezh, last April. He was hospitalized and died of the sustained injuries a few days later.
A surge in violence targeting foreigners with non-Slavic features has prompted Russian and foreign human rights groups in recent months to raise concerns over the alarming spread of racist and xenophobic attitudes in the country.
The Russian Interior Ministry has said about 80% of members of extremist groups members are under 30, and most of them are based in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Samara and Voronezh Regions.
