(Moscow) Dozens of Russians flocked from dawn on Saturday to blood donation centers in Moscow, still in “shock” after the armed attack on a concert hall which left at least 133 dead.
Under a gray sky and despite the rain, there were around 150 of them waiting for their turn in the street in front of a specialized center in the northwest of Moscow. They came as a sign of solidarity and at the call of the authorities, even if they said they had no immediate shortage of blood.
“I came to help,” summarizes Alexandra, a 35-year-old air logistics specialist, who believes that it is “the duty of every citizen”.
Living not far from the Crocus City Hall concert hall, in the close suburbs of the capital, attacked by armed attackers on Friday evening, this woman says she is still in “shock” of this assault claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) .
“When you can see from your balcony” the horrors that we talk about on television, “you understand that it is a reality, and for me personally, it is a nightmare,” she confides.
Russian authorities announced on Saturday the arrest of the four attackers of this terrorist attack, which is the deadliest in the country in twenty years and the bloodiest to have been claimed by ISIS in Europe.
According to investigators, the attackers opened fire with an automatic weapon, before setting the building on fire with an flammable liquid.
“Want to help”
“When we see this situation, we don’t want to stay away, we want to help,” Vladislav, an 18-year-old student who is queuing to donate blood, explains to AFP.
At midday on Saturday, Russian medical authorities announced that they had “enough blood” for the hundred injured in the attack.
“But we continue to receive all the donors. We are in solidarity with the wish of the people who have come to help build up reserves, declared an official of the Russian Federal Medical-Biological Agency, Olga Eïkhler, quoted by the official TASS news agency.
On many billboards and at some bus stops in Moscow, posters appeared showing a candle on a black background and the inscription: “We are in mourning 03/22/2024.”
Russians also came to lay flowers in front of the Crocus City Hall, whose roof is blackened and partially destroyed by the flames the day before, according to an AFP journalist.
PHOTO YULIA MOROZOVA, REUTERS
Russians came to lay flowers in front of Crocus City Hall.
Police and special forces were still deployed there, and hundreds of rescue workers continued to clear the debris.
In St. Petersburg, Russia’s second city, residents laid flowers at several locations around the city, and a line formed at the main makeshift memorial outside the Russian National Library.
The former imperial capital was the victim of a subway bombing in 2017, which left 14 dead and 53 injured.
” Fear ”
In Yekaterinburg, a large city in the Urals, an improvised memorial was formed in the central square, near a monument to Lenin. Residents brought flowers, toys, candles, many lingered, remained in silence, some cried, noted an AFP journalist.
Security measures have been strengthened in the Russian capital, especially in the metro, according to transport authorities.
Red Square was cordoned off, and tourists from other Russian regions did not hide their “fear” by walking nearby.
“We only have three days” to spend in Moscow and wanted to see “at least from afar the heart of the country”, explained to AFP Lyubov, a 43-year-old employee, who came with her family from the Pskov region ( northwest) to visit the capital.
Even if “there is no reason to rejoice”, she notes, saying she is “afraid for her life and for her loved ones”.
For Olga, 38, also met not far from Red Square, it is “the first time in Moscow”.
“It was all so unexpected […] a terrible tragedy,” said this woman from Chelyabinsk (Ural).
“Of course I don’t feel completely safe,” she admits. “And I’m scared, very scared.”