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Investigative Committee takes measures to find reasons and conditions contributing to death of teenagers in fires

The Ryazan Region investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee have opened a criminal case into a crime under part 3 of article 109 of the RF penal Code (reckless homicide of two or more people) following the death of people, including three children in a fire.

According to investigators, in the morning of 15 December 2015, dead bodies of three people, an adult and two children, were found after a fire in a single-family house with stove heating in the village of Berestyanka, Sasovo District. Later, when firemen were removing debris, the dead body of another child was found. Presumably, the owner’s 35-year-old brother and her three children aged 4, 3 and 2 were in the house.

An investigative team is working at the scene helped by criminal investigators and experts. The investigative operations are being supervised by the head of the Ryazan Region Investigations Directorate who is on their way to the scene. The investigators are going to find out the reasons for the fire, cause of deaths and all the details of the incident.

It should be noted that one of priorities in the activity of the Investigative Committee is investigating and solving crimes against socially unprotected categories of citizens and especially against children. The Investigative Committee is concerned with frequent deaths of minors in fires.

 You needn’t go far to find examples. On 14 December 2015, a fire happened in a house in the village of Gorki, Nerekhta District, Kostroma Region. A woman her four small children and presumably her boyfriend died in the fire. There is no way we can’t forget the fire that happened on 5 December in the Feniks gardening society in the town of Lyantor, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area-Yugra, that killed 8 teenagers aged between 13 and 16. There are ongoing investigations in all those incidents.

The details the investigators reveal suggest a conclusion that often parents are the ones to blame for deaths of their children. The parents, who, for example, can leave 7 children aged between 1 and 10 at home by themselves and when the children start to complain about the cold house on the phone suggest that the children light the stove. This was the attitude when on 8 October 2015, 7 children died in a fire in the village of Kholmskaya, Abinsk District, Krasnodar Territory. Their parents were charged with a crime under part 3 of article 109 of the RF penal Code (reckless homicide of two or more people). Soon the investigators are going to announce the end of the investigation and then the accused and their lawyers are going to read the case file. In addition, a request to eliminate all reasons for and conditions that had contributed to the crime of negligent attitude to the family in a hard family situation was sent to the head of Abinsk District administration.

However, it is not only parents who are responsible for the death of children in fires. Improper discharge of duty by supervising officials because of their negligent attitude to their duty causes considerable violation of rights and legal interests of minors and their death in fires.

During the inquiry into the death of teenagers in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area – Yugra the investigators are still looking into causes and consequences that brought about the tragedy. They have revealed that before going to the party in the holiday house they had bought alcohol in two shops in Lyantor. The shops have been found and the shopkeepers have been held under administrative responsibility in accordance with article 14.2 of the RF Administrative offences Code for having sold alcohol to underage. In addition, specialists of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights protection and Human Wellbeing are now gathering materials to send to court so that these shops are closed.

On 13 October 2015, the Saratov Region investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal investigation in negligence of officials of social services and a police station. It was revealed that officials of social services of Leninsky District of Saratov and officers of the district juvenile police division had had information that was real threat to lives of small children, including the facts that there was no food, their parents were drinkers and left children in the flat alone. However, due to negligence the officials had failed to take enough measures to take the children out from the family and at might of 2 October 2015, the three small children, two boys and a girl, died in a fire in the house in Zhasminnaya railway station in Saratov.

The Investigative Committee is going to continue looking into the causes and conditions that had led to such grievous consequences so that such tragedies do not repeat themselves in future. It should be noted that protection of minors against crimes is an object of constant and close attention for the Committee.