VN condemns Volgograd attacks, extend condolences

Vietnam strongly condemns the terrorist bombings in Russia’s Volgograd city on December 29 and 30 that left at least 31 people dead, said foreign ministry’s spokesperson Luong Thanh Nghi.

Nghi made the statement while answering reporters’ query on Vietnam’s response to the two consecutive bombings within 24 hours in Volgograd.

“We would like to extend deep condolences to families of the victims, the Government and people of Russia”, the spokesperson said.

He believed that those who carried out the attacks will be strictly punished.

According to international media, at least 14 people were killed when an explosion ripped through a trolley bus in Volgograd on Monday. The authorities blamed the explosion on a suicide bomber.

A day earlier, Sunday, 17 people were killed in a terror attack by a suspected female suicide bomber at a railway station in Volgograd that serves as a gateway to the southern wedge of Russian territory bounded by the Black and Caspian Seas and the Caucasus mountains.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either of the two attacks, Reuters reported.

Investigators said they believed a male suicide bomber was responsible for Monday's blast.

In Sunday’s attack, the federal Investigative Committee initially described the bomber as a woman from Dagestan, a hub of Islamist militancy on the Caspian, but later said the attacker may have been a man, according to Reuters.