Moscow police have detained 16 Nigerian
students accused of smashing furniture inside their country's embassy, reportedly in anger over unpaid grants.
The 16 suspects were removed from the embassy building at the request of Nigerian staff, Russia's interior ministry told local media.
All of them are enrolled at colleges of higher education in Russia, it added.
Other African students in Russia have
protested in the past over their home
countries' failure to pay their grants.
The 16 students arrested in Moscow face
administrative charges, the interior ministry said.
Trouble erupted at the embassy on Malaya
Nikitskaya Street following a hearing for the students over their financial problems,
according to a police source quoted by Ria-
Novosti news agency.
Furniture was smashed in the reception room,
after which the students reportedly threatened to damage the embassy's other rooms.
Last year, Nigerian students beat up an
embassy representative over non-payment of
grants, Russia's lenta.ru news website
reports.
Thousands of African students have passed
through the educational system in Moscow and
other Russian cities in a tradition dating
back to Soviet times, when the communist
government subsidised their studies.
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