YELTSIN SUMMONS SECURITY OFFICIALS AS TWO PEOPLE DIE IN SOUTH RUSSIAN BOMB BLAST.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin has summoned Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov and other Russian security officials to his Black Sea dacha for urgent consultations in response to the worsening security situation in southern Russia. Today, a 15-year-old girl died from injuries sustained when a bomb ripped through a waiting room at the railway station in Pyatigorsk in southern Russia’s Stavropol krai yesterday evening. One man was killed instantly, and 11 other people were injured, three of them critically. Kulikov said five Chechen suspects are in detention and that two of them, both women, have admitted responsibility for planting the bomb. The Russian authorities have responded by indefinitely closing all road links between Chechnya and Russia proper. (Itar-Tass, April 28)

Yesterday’s bomb in Pyatisgorsk follows an explosion at the railway station in Armavir in neighboring Krasnodar krai on April 23, in which two people were also killed. The Chechen authorities have strongly denied responsibility for the blasts. They accuse Moscow of orchestrating the bombings in order to undermine peace negotiations and pave the way for a declaration of emergency rule in Chechnya.

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