A Russian lady-doctor shot dead in Ingushetia

A source from the law enforcement bodies of Ingushetia has informed that Natalia Fyodorovna Mudarova, head physician of the blood transfusion centre, was assassinated in the centre of Nazran (Ingushetia).

"The attack on the doctor was committed at about 1:15 p.m. Moscow time in the centre of Nazran near the KamAZ Truck Service Centre. The doctor was walking along during her lunch time, and at that moment an unknown person opened fire from automatic weapon and killed her," the RIA "Novosti" quotes the source.

The "Ingushetia.Ru" web site reports that Ms Mudarova was a Russian by nationality and married to a Chechen.

In these latter days, despite the broad-scale operation undertaken in Ingushetia the situation becomes more and more tense. During the recent months, attacks on employees of law enforcement bodies, militaries and civilians have become more frequent.

By the outcomes of the latest census, now the Russian population of Ingushetia makes about 4 percent, same as in Chechnya. Thus, Ingushetia, like Chechnya, remain a mono-ethnic republic.

According to the 1989 census, almost four hundred thousand Russians lived in Chechnya. According to the Russia's MIA, only in 1992 some 250 Russians were killed and about 300 disappeared in Grozny.

By 1994, during Dudaev's rule more than two thousand Russian-speaking persons were murdered.

Thousands of people were leaving their houses and property and fleeing to Russia. Prior to the first Chechen campaign, more than 250,000 persons had left Chechnya.

According to certain data, by the start of the second Chechen war, only about 29,000 Russians (over 17,000 of them elderly people) remained in the territory of the Republic.