At least 11 dead in Russia blasts

MOSCOW, Russia -- At least 11 people have been killed and more than 30 wounded in two separate blasts in southern Russia.

The deaths happened on Saturday when a Lada car exploded in a central market in the southern Russian town of Mineralnye Vody in the Stavropol region, which borders separatist Chechnya.

According to the office of the Kremlin's envoy to the region, 11 people died and 36 were injured in the blast, which happened at around 10 a.m. (0700 GMT).

The cause of the explosion is not yet known.

A separate blast near a police station in the town of Yessentuki injured 11 people, a duty police officer at regional police headquarters told Reuters by phone.

Bomb explosions in the south of Russia are sometimes linked to unrest in Chechnya, where separatist rebels have been fighting the Russian army for about 18 months.

Last December, two people died when two explosions went off in the town of Pyatigorsk in the same region. Officials at the time said they suspected terrorism.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Human Rights Watch: Chechnya
Russian Government

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