The airport of Makhachkala, capital of the Russian Republic of Dagestan, was the scene of riots on Sunday October 29 – a word which in Russian is “pogrom”. For several hours, a crowd invaded the place, sometimes looking for “of Israelis”sometimes “of Jews”. The events were filmed by dozens of phones.
After forcing the doors of the main terminal to cries of ” God is great “, hundreds of people, some carrying Palestinian flags, stormed the airport. The arrival of a flight from Tel Aviv had been announced in advance, inflaming already overheated minds in this Republic of nearly 3 million inhabitants, with a Muslim majority, where Salafist influence has grown significantly in recent years. years.
In the videos, groups of raging men searched every nook and cranny in search of their prey. Others checked vehicles and pedestrians around the airport, demanding to see passports and insulting people with a “suspicious” appearance. – like this Uzbek doctor attacked by the angry crowd. In other images, a man points to a bus and whispers: “They are there, the Jews, they are all there. »
Police passivity
After tearing down the security barriers, the demonstrators invaded the airstrips. Several planes were besieged, passengers and crews holed up inside. Faced with the passivity of the police, airport employees tried to negotiate by offering to the crowd to designate representatives who would be authorized to board the plane to ensure, camera in hand, the absence of Israeli nationals. .
The intervention of the riot police did not take place until later in the evening. Monday morning, the authorities announced sixty arrests and the opening of a criminal investigation for disturbing public order. “My Jewish friends are afraid, they wonder if people will show up at their house to “check their passports””testifies an activist from Makhtchkala who has long been committed to cohabitation between communities.
These events were all the more shocking as they came at the climax of a weekend marked, throughout the Russian Caucasus, by multiple anti-Semitic incidents. In Khasavyurt, still in Dagestan, dozens of men besieged a hotel after it was rumored to be hosting “Israeli refugees”. In Nalchik, capital of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, a community center burned, and tags “death to the Jews” registered on the building.
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