“They are not our nation, these are not our people. If I was the state of Russia, I would kill them with an axe.”
That’s what Firdavs, a migrant worker from Tajikistan who we met outside the Tajik consulate in Moscow, had to say about the four suspects behind the Moscow terror attack, all of them Tajik citizens.
Others joined in, offering their condolences to the people of Russia, saying they are mourning too.
Russia is not an easy place for central Asian migrant workers at the best of times.
They keep the streets clean and deliveries cheap, warehouses stacked and construction projects afloat.
There is little money and no security but it is better than the salaries back home.
The war has added to that sense of precariousness with raids on dormitories, frequent deportations of unregistered migrants and fears over possible conscription.
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Now the horror of what happened at Crocus City Hall casts a further shadow.
“Here we are in Russia,” Firdavs said. “We want to work and live normally.
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“The state also supports us, all of this suits us.”
For just under £2 a night, you can get a bunk in a dorm of six to eight people at a hostel in the village of Chelobityevo, on the outskirts of Moscow.
But not if you’re from central Asia.
“The FSB won’t let us register them,” the caretaker declared, although just down the road another dormitory seems to have no problem with the bureaucracy.
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2:57
Suspects are ‘radical Islamists’
An indicator perhaps of the disdain a lot of Russians feel towards their central Asian brethren at the bottom of the labour market.
Vladimir Putin asked prosecutors this Tuesday to make sure that law enforcement reviews anti-crime measures, particularly within the context of migration.
What happened at Crocus City Hall proves he has good reason to fear radicalisation amongst marginalised communities, especially the more impoverished among them which the Tajik community is.
One of the attackers said he’d been offered half a million roubles (£4,300) to carry out the attack, a statement made under duress but, if true, an indicator of the toxic mix of poverty, marginalisation and radical Islam.
Easy prey for Islamic State – Khorasan, active across Afghanistan and central Asia, which has claimed responsibility for Friday’s atrocity.
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A well-known Iraqi social media influencer has reportedly been shot dead in her car by a gunman on a motorbike.
Om Fahad, whose real name is Ghufran Sawadi, was killed outside her home in Baghdad’s Zayouna district on Friday, according to the AFP news agency, citing security officials.
It appears the unidentified attacker pretended to be delivering food to the victim, one security source said.
Om Fahad, who has nearly half a million TikTok followers, became famous for posting light-hearted videos where she dances to Iraqi music.
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Six days ago, she shared footage of herself driving in a car and also posing in front of a mirror. They have each been watched hundreds of thousands of times.
The influencer was sentenced to six months in prison in February last year for sharing videos that a court ruled contained “indecent speech that undermines modesty and public morality”.
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A campaign was launched in 2023 by the Iraqi government to clamp down on social media content which broke the country’s “morals and traditions”.
The interior ministry set up a committee to look for “offensive” clips on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, with several influencers being arrested.
“This type of content is no less dangerous than organised crime,” the ministry declared in a promotional video which asked the public to help by reporting such content.
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“It is one of the causes of the destruction of the Iraqi family and society.”
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In 2018, gunmen in Baghdad shot dead Tara Fares, who was a model and influencer.
After years of war and sectarian conflict following the 2003 US invasion that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq has returned to some semblance of normality despite sporadic violence, political instability and corruption.
But civil liberties, particularly among women and sexual minorities, are still constrained in a conservative and male-dominated society.
The family of a missing high school student who may have been the first victim of a suspected serial killer in Mexico City have protested at the site where bones were found last week.
The bones were discovered with the belongings of at least six women, police said, and Amairany Roblero’s relatives have been told that evidence was found relating to her 2012 disappearance.
Ms Roblero was 18 when she vanished and, as is often the case in Mexico, her family was left to investigate her disappearance with little help from prosecutors.
Family friend Alejandra Jimenez said: “The prosecutors had the case file but they didn’t ever give any results to her parents.”
Instead, her parents printed flyers and gave them out near her school – the last place she was seen – but they had “nothing, nowhere to start, nor any directions to the end”, Ms Jimenez added.
A suspect, identified only by his first name, Miguel, was detained by neighbours and police last week after he is alleged to have killed a seventh young woman.
He is accused of waiting for a woman to leave her apartment and then rushing inside to sexually abuse and strangle her 17-year-old daughter.
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The woman returned to the apartment to see the suspect leaving and she was slashed across her neck before he ran off.
She survived but her daughter died.
Investigators searched a room rented by the suspect and found bones, mobile phones and ID cards belonging to several women in the same block, thought to be mementos.
Miguel is awaiting trial on charges of murder and attempted murder relating to the most recent victims.
City prosecutor Ulises Lara insisted the suspect was difficult to catch because “he showed no signs of violent or aggressive behaviour in his daily life”.
Ms Roblero’s family and friends were not accepting this, however.
“They (authorities) have all the means to look for missing people,” Ms Jimenez said. “Instead of focusing on their political campaigns, they should help all the women who are looking for their children.”
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Juan Carlos Gutierrez, a lawyer representing the family of another victim, was also frustrated, asking why no investigation had never been launched in that case, despite missing person reports being filed in 2015.
Ms Jimenez said Ms Roblero’s family had not been told which of the items or remains in the apartment had been linked to her, adding: “This is wearing her parents down physically, mentally.”
Some 2,580 women were murdered in Mexico in 2023, according to the country’s National Public Security System but poorly funded and badly trained prosecutors have failed to stop serial killers over the years.
In 2021 a serial killer in Mexico City killed 19 people but their bodies were only found, buried at his house, after the wife of a police commander became one of the victims.
In 2018 another serial killer in Mexico City murdered at least 10 women and was only stopped after he was seen pushing a dismembered body down the street in a pram.