SARY-SU, CRIMEA – Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, armed men have shown up frequently to search the cinder-block houses, mosque and school in Sary-Su, a settlement of Crimean Tatars, a Muslim ethnic minority that has long suffered from discrimination in the peninsula, which is its historic homeland.
The worst shock came in September, when two men in the town of 3,000 were abducted.
Now the community “is trembling with fear,” said Rebiya Setarova, an 80-year-old Tatar, as she tottered anxiously across a dirt road to check on her son and grandchildren ahead of Friday prayers. “Now I worry for the fate of my son. Everybody worries about the children.”
Police have made no arrests, and the kidnappers’ identities remain a mystery. But Setarova has no doubts about who is responsible: “This is what we get when Russia comes to Crimea.”
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