The provisional death toll stands at seven. On Friday afternoon, July 23, four inmates of a Russian prison called “IK-19” and located in the city of Sourovikino took several prison officers hostage, before being shot dead a few hours later, by the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) during an intervention within the prison.
Some hostages were freed but three died, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) announced, confirming the alert given earlier by the governor of the Volgograd region, Andrei Bocharov. “The perpetrators inflicted stab wounds of varying severity on four employees, three of whom died”, detailed the FSIN.
Four other prison officers were injured and some were airlifted to the town of Surovikino for hospital treatment. “Victims receive all necessary medical care”said Andrei Botcharov on Telegram. And to promise that “The victims' families will receive support” on the part of his administration.
The profile of the attackers under study
The regional governor also assured that investigations are underway. At a meeting of the Russian Security Council, President Vladimir Putin himself requested an account of the hostage-taking from his interior minister, Vladimir Kolokoltsev.
Initial information about the profiles and motivations of the four prisoners behind the hostage-taking is emerging from some videos of the event. Distributed online by several Russian media and news outlets, they show men armed with knives, their hands covered in blood, holding a wounded hostage and filming themselves in what appears to be the prison courtyard. One of the attackers can also be seen brandishing a black cloth resembling a flag of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS).
A situation that recalls another hostage-taking claimed by the IS and which occurred two months earlier in a prison in the Rostov Oblast, neighboring that of Volgograd. Russia has been targeted on multiple occasions by attacks claimed by the jihadist organization, although its influence remains limited in the country. At the end of March, an attack was claimed by the Islamic State against the Crocus City Hall, a concert hall near Moscow, where armed men killed 145 people, the worst attack committed in Russia in nearly twenty years.
Source: Lemonde
