Volgograd blasts: City on alert as death toll rises

BBC News

Thousands of police are patrolling public transport and checking traffic in Volgograd after two suicide bomb attacks shook the south Russian city.

The number of people who died in the attacks has risen to 34, the regional health authority told Russian media, with some 60 injured.

It is unclear if the toll includes the bombers, who attacked the rail station on Sunday and a trolleybus on Monday.

The first victim has been buried - a policeman killed at the station.

President Vladimir Putin has yet to comment publicly on the attacks, which came days before the New Year holiday, one of Russia's biggest celebrations, and just over a month before the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Mr Putin is due to make his traditional New Year's speech to the nation at midnight (20:00 GMT).

No group has said it carried out the attacks, which Russian investigators believe are connected. However, the bombings are similar to previous indiscriminate attacks by Islamist militants operating from the North Caucasus.

Volgograd, a city of one million known as Stalingrad during World War 2, commemorated the 70th anniversary of the battle of the same name this year, in an outpouring of Russian patriotic fervour.

Reserves called in

More than 5,000 law enforcement agents were deployed on Tuesday morning, regional security spokesman Andrei Pilipchuk told Russian media.

Extra reserves and the "maximum number of police and interior ministry soldiers possible" were being brought in, he said.

As many as 600 police officers from the city were recently transferred to Sochi, 688km (428 miles) to the south-west, to help with preparation for the Games which begin on 7 February, Reuters news agency reports.

Events for New Year's Eve, such as children's parties, have been cancelled in the city, while residents have been asked not to set off fireworks.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, members of Russian Cossack organisations reportedly mounted vigilante patrols in the city.

The death toll rose overnight as a person wounded in Sunday's attack on the station died of their injuries, bringing the total fatalities in that attack to 18.

Another person injured in Monday's attack on a trolleybus also died, bringing that toll to 16.

Funerals

The first victim to be buried on New Year's Eve was transport policeman Dmitry Makovkin, 29, killed at a metal detector in the station, where the suicide bomber set off the device.

Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral, at which Inspector Makovkin was remembered by his commander as a hero, who possibly prevented greater loss of life by blocking the attacker or attackers from entering the station, the Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports.

The married policeman, who had a son, was buried in a closed coffin, as his young wife wept, the paper writes. His grieving mother fainted and was treated by doctors who were standing by.

A second victim was being buried on Tuesday and funerals are due to continue through the holiday period.

Investigators believe a male suicide attacker bombed the trolleybus and are studying fragments of his body in an effort to identify him. Police sources say the attack on the station may also have been the work of a male bomber, after initial speculation it was a woman.

Identical shrapnel was used in the bombs, according to Vladimir Markin, spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee.

Analysts say the prime suspect for the attack is likely to be Doku Umarov, a fugitive Islamist militant leader from Chechnya.

He has orchestrated previous bomb attacks on Russian civilian targets, and vowed in July that his fighters would use "any means possible" to keep Mr Putin from staging the Sochi Games.