Friends, Family Mourn 5-Year-Old Tajik Girl Killed in Russia

The death of a 5-year-old Tajik girl who was killed in Russia has caused outrage in Tajikistan and among the hundreds of thousands of Tajiks working in Russia.According to a press release and video report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the girl, Huvaido Tillozoda, was the daughter of a pair of Tajik migrants living in Serpukhov, which is about 65 miles south of Moscow. She disappeared on July 22 and her body was discovered stuffed into a bag the following day.A 27-year-old neighbor of the girl’s family was detained and charged with rape and murder after Huvaido’s fingerprints and shoes were found at his apartment. He had been previously reported to the police in 2017 for sexual abuse but had not been arrested, and four Russian officers in Serpukhov, as well as the city’s police chief, were dismissed for failing to apprehend him at the time.This footage shows Huvaido’s family attending her funeral in Kulob, Tajikistan.Huvaido’s father, Abdusalom Saidov, can be heard in the latter section of the video: “I’ll bury her, then I’ll go back. I want to see the arrest and trial for myself.”The Tajik Foreign Ministry issued a note to the Russian Foreign Ministry demanding that the crime be solved and the person responsible should receive “severe punishment.” Credit: RFE/RL via Storyful