In an Old Believer settlement in the north of the region, a tragedy occurred at the end of July. A three-year-old toddler received a gunshot wound to the head. According to the investigation, a 6-year-old brother shot him. The details of the tragedy are told by AiF-Krasnoyarsk.
Illegal weapon
The Old Believer settlement where the child's family lived is located in the taiga, 120 km from the nearest village. According to the regional department of the Investigative Committee, the parents left for haymaking, leaving two children, 6 and 3 years old, at home alone. Somehow the older boy got into the hands of a gun, from which he shot at his younger brother.
After that, he found his parents on the field and told them about the incident. Since the Old Believers do not have mobile phones, they had to swim 120 km by boat to the nearest settlement in order to call doctors.
On this fact, a criminal case was initiated under the article "Intentional infliction of grievous harm to the health of a minor with the use of weapons." Law enforcers establish all the circumstances of the incident.
As told in the Office of the National Guard on the edge, the gun from which the shot was fired was not registered. Now it is being clarified where and how it was acquired. “In the Old Believer settlements, Rosgvardia employees are now carrying out preventive work,” said Maria Ivanova, executive officer of the department's press service. - We understand that people live there, including hunting. And surely many families have guns. But with searches we cannot go to their house. We offer people to voluntarily surrender unaccounted weapons, and for a fee. We also explain the rules for its purchase and registration. Moreover, we carry out such work on a regular basis”.
As we were told in the regional Ministry of Health, the child is now in a consistently grave condition. Doctors continue to fight for his life.
A special way
Of course, the situation was influenced by the way of life of the Old Believers. The settlement is located in a deep taiga. They live here according to their own laws, far from always accepting secular legal norms. Last fall, not only for the whole country, but also for the whole world, the story of the Brazilian Old Believer with the outlandish name Hanofer Efimoff di Queiros, who lived for 20 years without a passport in the Siberian taiga, got married and had three children. Then he was threatened with deportation. But due to the hype in the media, the top leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs got involved in the situation. The Brazilian was given a residence permit, and in a few years he will be able to obtain Russian citizenship.
Already in the spring, during a working trip to the Turukhansk region, the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the region, Alexander Rechitsky, visited the hard-to-reach community of Old Believers. He met with the Brazilian, and also handed passports to other residents of the settlement.
At the same time, information was announced how many Old Believers live in the region. It turned out not so many: about 150 families. They are constantly working on legalization, that is, on obtaining the necessary documents. But very often, when a helicopter with representatives of law enforcement agencies arrives in such settlements, residents hide.
“Our state is secular. But the Constitution recognizes the right of a citizen to freedom of religion. This family made their choice. At the same time, according to the law, parents have certain obligations in relation to their own children, - says Irina Miroshnikova, ombudsman for the rights of the child in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. - Probably, in the conditions in which this family lives, the presence of weapons is a necessity. But such tragedies can and do happen anywhere else. Because this is an accident. The trouble. We cannot say here that the parents deliberately wanted to harm their children. But now they will have to answer according to the law. And law enforcement agencies work there. Although this family is already severely punished. I can say that we did not have to work with Old Believers. Citizens from the city of the Sun (a community near Kuragin) appealed - there they defended the rights of children to benefits and education."