Tourists refuse to go to Kab-Balkaria following Friday attack

MOSCOW, February 20 (Itar-Tass) -- The flow of tourists from Moscow
planning a trip to Kabardino-Balkaria has dropped following the murder of
three Muscovites there, Press Secretary of Russia's union of tourist
industry Irina Tyurina told the Russian News Service radio station on
Saturday.
"After what happened yesterday, clients started to refuse from the
trips," she said. "We offer a direct bus from Moscow, and the number of
sold tickets is falling: we have between five and twenty passengers
instead of 50, and we are not sure if the next bus will ever go."
On Friday evening, on the Baksan-Azau federal highway in the Baksan
area at the entrance to the village of Zayukovo, unidentified persons
fired at a van with five tourists from Moscow and the Moscow Region. Three
people were killed, and two with gunshot wounds were taken to hospital.
"Unfortunately, it is not the first attack in the republic against
people who are absolutely not connected with law enforcement services or
power authorities. Furthermore, this time the victims are those arrived in
Kabardino-Balkaria on vacation. Our guests were killed. It is not just an
atrocious crime, it is also spitting in the face of all the people of
Kabardino-Balkaria, for whom the principles of hospitality are one of the
cornerstones of culture and the way of life", Kanokov was quoted by his
press service as saying.
"Both the republic's leadership and the law-enforcement system must
draw a conclusion from this case. We must make every effort to protect
tourists, ensure their safety during their holiday and not to endanger the
large-scale plans of the federal and local authorities to create a modern
recreation cluster in the region," he said.
He expressed his sincere condolences to the relatives of the killed,
assuring that "moral and material aid would be provided for their
families."
A source in the Russian Investigation Committee's office in
Kabardino-Balkaria said that in the shooting attack against a group of
tourists on the Baksan-Azau federal highway in the Baksan area at the
entrance to the village of Zayukovo, gunmen killed Denis Belokon, born in
1976, from the city of Moskovsky, the Moscow Region, Irina Patrusheva
(1973) from the same city and Vyacheslav Kara (1984) from Moscow.
Muscovites Sergei Yefremov, born in 1970, and Valery Belokon (1952)
have moderately severe wounds, a spokesman said.
Wounded Belokon told investigators that a black foreign-made car with
no number plates pressed the van with tourists to a side of the road and
forced it to stop. In the vehicle there were a driver and five tourists
who were on the way to the resort Elbrus area. Unknown masked men armed
with submachine guns demanded the tourists presented their identification
documents for checking. As the tourists wanted to see the documents of the
men in masks, they opened fire to kill the passengers.
The van driver, who was not hurt, called medics. The attackers
escaped. An official investigation into the case has been launched.