Russian authorities deport Georgian citizens

In a chilling part of an escalating campaign against Georgia, Moscow police have asked schools to provide lists of schoolchildren with Georgian surnames in a bid to root out illegal migrants, a municipal official said today.

Russian authorities, meanwhile, deported nearly 140 Georgian citizens on a plane from Moscow after detaining them as illegal migrants, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

A bitter dispute erupted last week between the two countries after the arrest of four Russian officers on charges of spying.

Despite their release, Moscow has slapped a range of punitive sanctions on its small southern neighbour as well as launching a crackdown on Georgian migrants and businesses in Russia.

Alexander Gavrilov, a spokesman for the Moscow City hall’s education department, said some but not all schools had received this request.

He criticised the police action, saying that all children, irrespective of nationality or religion, had an equal right to education.