PRESS RELEASE

Right Sector Triggers Odessa Massacre

May 2, 2014 (EIRNS)—Over 40 people are dead and 170 injured after shootings and a fire, triggered by Right Sector paramilitary actions in Ukraine’s southeastern port city of Odessa today, city officials announced. The Right Sector militants, from the neo-Nazi grouping that was instrumental in the February 2014 coup in Kiev, evidently chose the day of a big soccer match, to be able to draw large numbers of soccer fans into a March for Ukrainian Unity, as they called it. The march, under Ukrainian and also Banderite (as in the Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera) flags, clashed with anti-coup militants in central Odessa. Video images from the scene showed police lines, attempting to separate the two groups, being overrun. There were several gunshot deaths and injuries in the afternoon, but all hell broke loose when the Right Sector/soccer mob set fire to the Trade Unions building, into which the anti-Kiev activists had moved. Dozens were asphyxiated or fell to their deaths from windowsills as they attempted to escape the fire. After midnight, 50 people were still on the roof of the building. Even the pro-coup Kyiv Post reported that the mob screamed the Banderite slogans "Glory to Ukraine!" and "Death to the Enemies!" as they hurled Molotov cocktails into the burning building. The city government declared May 3-5 as days of mourning.