Tajik prosecutor Kurbonali Mukhabatov said on 21 July that the number of Tajik migrant workers who die in Russia is rising. In 2002, Mukhabatov said, Russian authorities returned to Tajikistan 328 bodies of migrant workers. Seventy-eight of them had been killed, 118 died of illnesses, and the cause of death was unknown in 125 cases. In the first half of this year, 211 bodies of Tajik migrant workers have been returned to their homeland. According to information from the Society of Tajiks in Moscow, more than 40,000 Tajik citizens are in prison in Russia, hundreds of whom die there each year. In recent weeks, Russian media have been giving considerable attention to the plight of Tajik migrants in Russia, who are often deceived by labor-placement officials and employers, forced to live in substandard conditions, and are paid little, if at all. (centran.ru)