RUSSIA TODAY

Moscow Students Locked in Over Hitler`s Birthday

Foreign students in Russia were advised to stay home, when Russian neo-Nazi mark Hitler`s birthday, to avoid racist attack.

A Moscow medical academy advised its foreign students to stay at home on Friday, when Russia's growing numbers of neo-Nazis mark Adolf Hitler's birthday, to avoid racist attacks.

Sergei Baranov, acting dean of Moscow Medical Academy's foreign students' faculty, said the decision to give foreign students leave three days' leave on Friday and over the weekend was taken on the request of several embassies.

Students from more than 80 countries study at the academy, one of Moscow's main medical colleges.

"Past experience shows that neo-Nazis are getting more active on these days," Baranov said.

"The academy's leadership has decided to give foreign students three days' leave and advised them not to go outdoors or at least stay close to their hostels."

Russian rights campaigners say xenophobia and racism is rising in Russia, which prides itself for playing the key role in crushing Nazism in World War Two.

In the past few years dozens of foreigners, mainly dark-skinned, have been attacked by skinhead-like groups across Russia, from Moscow to provincial Voronezh.

There were no reported incidents on Friday.

"Our students have classes in eight Moscow clinics," Baranov said. "We have asked police to step up security in their hostel but there is not enough resource to cover all of Moscow."

Foreign students said they appreciated efforts of the academy's leadership.

"Prevention is better than killing," Rajadurai Uthsapathi, a fifth-year student from India who himself had once been attacked by skinheads, said.

But some of them asked whether they were safe on other days.

"These three days we will not go out, nothing will happen," said Yong Pei Wien, a Malaysian Chinese. "And what after that?"