RUSSIA:Russia was shocked yesterday by the kidnapping of a boy of six and his 11-year-old sister, who were bundled into a car and abducted as they strolled home from a sports lesson.
Dmitry Borodulin and his sister, Alexandra, had been collected by their father, Pavel, from a sports club in St Petersburg. They were walking near the Hermitage museum when five men leapt on Mr Borodulin and hit him over the head before grabbing the children and speeding off. The case has provoked outrage among Russians already reeling from a series of horrific child murders.
Mr Borodulin and his wife are musicians who studied in St Petersburg's prestigious conservatory. They had recently inherited two flats, which they rented out, but were scarcely wealthy by the standards of modern Russia. No ransom note has been received.
Detectives suspect the kidnapping was done by criminals and that it may have been a case of mistaken identity.
The children's father is recovering in hospital and their mother, Janna, is said to be in shock and hardly able to speak.
Last year, 817 children were murdered or seriously wounded, and 170,000 were victims of adult violence. Alcoholism, neglect and official indifference have turned the problem into a national scandal.
Last week a girl of 15 in Krasnoyarsk vanished, days after a four-year-old girl was found dead in a forest near Moscow. In April a five-year-old boy in Novgorod disappeared and in Krasnoyarsk the body of Polina Malkova (5) was found after a huge hunt. She had been mutilated, beaten and tortured - prompting MPs to consider a new law on child protection.