Seven migrants go on hunger strike at SDC of Dagestani MIA

The hunger strike has been announced in Makhachkala at the special detention centre (SDC) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Dagestan by seven foreigners, the decision on compulsory expulsion of whom from the territory of Russia is not enforced, said Galimzyan Khalikov, a citizen of Turkmenistan and one of the hunger-strikers.

According to his story, the hunger strike was announced today, on March 27, by inmates of the SDC for foreign citizens of the Dagestani MIA.

Mr Khalikov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he "had spent a year at the SDC, awaiting deportation from Russia."

The hunger-strikers, citizens of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Ukraine, "are dissatisfied with the custody conditions and the fact that they remain "cut off from the outside world," Galimzyan Khalikov has noted. "We have no TV-set or radio receiver, and even boiling water. They don’t allow us to buy biscuits and sweets," said the Turkmen citizen.

According to his story, at the SDC, "people are waiting for years for being sent home." "We applied for help to different bodies, and wrote to the head of Dagestan. Last November, I sent a complaint to the Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. But either the answer has not come, or they wouldn’t give it to me," Mr Khalikov has complained.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.