MOSCOW, October 22. (ITAR-TASS). — Among the victims of Monday’s terrorist attack in Volgograd were three women and three men aged 16 to 29 years. This was announced on Tuesday by the official representative of Russia’s Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin.
According to investigators, the explosion killed women aged 18, 22 and 29 years old, as well as young men that were 16-, 18- and 20-year-old.
Markin noted that the investigation had yet to carry out the procedure of identification.
What has been found out
“It has been established that (the suicide bomber that blew up the bus Naida) Asiyalova arrived in Volgograd from Makhachkala on a bus en route to Moscow. For reasons unknown, she got off the bus in the area of the Volgograd Academy of the Interior Ministry about an hour before the terrorist attack,” Markin said.
“According to preliminary data, experts estimate the blast power at about 500-600 grams TNT, and the explosive device, which was set off by Asiyalova, was packed with metal objects - dowels,” the Investigative Committee spokesman said.
Within the framework of the criminal investigation a complex of legal expertise has been initiated, in particular, forensic and blasting expertise. On Tuesday, the investigators have started to further examine the scene to determine other circumstances of the explosion, as well as to detect the elements of the bomb.
Investigative Committee’s measures
Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin arrived on Monday in Volgograd to hold a briefing session where the progress and initial results of the criminal investigation of the attack were reported. The meeting was attended by the leadership of the Investigative Committee of Russia in Volgograd region, regional offices of the Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service of Russia, as well as members of the investigation group.
After the briefing Alexander Bastrykin set a number of tasks over the investigation, identification and initiation of search of persons implicated in the crime. At present, the investigators have interrogated over 50 people from the eyewitnesses of the terrorist attack.
Eyewitness: “The headscarf had a beautiful pattern”
Students of the Polytechnic College were helping victims to get out of the bus that was blown up in Volgograd. This told Itar-Tass Yevgeniy Bulatnikov who came to visit his friends to the hospital.
“I was also in this bus with the guys, but decided to get off at the ‘Vtorchermet’ stop, it’s before the ‘Lesobasa’ near which the explosion occurred. When I got off, I heard a strong boom, turned back and saw that the bus was in smoke. I rushed there, the others were also helping, and the emergencies also came very quickly,” Bulatnikov told.
He said that he was standing literally in 15 centimeters from a woman in headscarf. “I was looking upon her headscarf, it had a very beautiful pattern. And then, when I got off the bus, it turned out that Nikita Gnusov took my place. He was wounded, and I could be in his place. It could end even worse,” the young man said.
Three students from Volgograd - Nikita Gnusov, Alexander Malmin, Vladimir Kukhar, those whom came to visit their friend Eugene Bulatnikov, stand in a hospital room with bandaged hands. They shift from foot to foot, and seem almost indifferent to all the rush around. Reporters’ questions, cheers of their mate - all remain unaddressed, the guys are silent. “Another aftermath of a psychological shock,” the doctors from the trauma unit of the hospital explain. The mother of one of the students appears. She asks everyone out of the room: “Stay away from our children, they need rest.”
The blast that occurred Monday afternoon in a passenger bus in Volgograd claimed lives of 6 people, and 37 people were taken to hospital. Eight of them were placed in intensive care facilities. Four people are in critical condition.
Upon the explosion has been filed a criminal case under 3 articles – “terrorist attack”, “murder of two or more people” and “illegal arms and explosives trafficking”.
Three days of mourning were declared in the Volgograd region.
Terrorist attacks on Russia’s ground mass transit in 1994-2013