Abdus Saleh, a second-year student at the history department of the Voronezh State University, was beaten by unidentified persons on the night of March 10-11 in a third attack on foreigners in the city in the last forty-eight hours, the aide said.
The student with a fractured arm was taken to the regional hospital. A criminal investigation has been opened into the incident, the aide said.
On Saturday, Voronezh prosecutors opened a criminal case into an attack on a Nigerian citizen. The same day, prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into the beating of an Iraqi student, the aide said.
A popular destination for foreign undergraduates about 310 miles south of Moscow, Voronezh has recently come to the spotlight as a center of racially motivated crimes.
In October 2005, an Albanian national studying at Voronezh University told police he was beaten up near his dormitory and had his mobile phone and ID card stolen. In January, two men from Sudan were allegedly assaulted at one of the city's bus stops, but reportedly sustained no serious injuries.
A group of teenagers attacked a Vietnamese national, who lived in the town of Ostrogozhsk near Voronezh, last April. He was hospitalized and died of the sustained injuries a few days later.
A surge in violence targeting foreigners with non-Slavic features has prompted Russian and foreign human rights groups in recent months to raise concerns over the alarming spread of racist and xenophobic attitudes in the country.
The Russian Interior Ministry has said about 80% of members of extremist groups members are under 30, and most of them are based in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Samara and Voronezh Regions.
