Screenshot of the YouTube video featuring François Ndzhelassili who calls to participate in a reading day in the local library. Source: official city administration video channel on YouTube. François Ndzhelassili, a postgraduate student from Gabon, was murdered in Yekaterinburg, one of Russia's largest cities, in what appears to be a racism-based killing. This has happened at a time when Russia is a pariah in the West because of the brutal invasion of Ukraine, and Putin has turned to the Global South in search of support. The number of international students from Africa studying in Russian universities has been on the rise. But how is it working in reality, in a country that has yet to accept racism is a problem? Global Voices explored the situation in which students from African countries have found themselves, in the USSR and in present day Russia. On August 18, 2023, a 32-year-old Urals State Federal University postgraduate student François Ndzhelassil, was stabbed with a knife. He died from his wounds. The murder took place in the Burger King at the intersection of Malysheva and March 8 streets, in the very center of Yekaterinburg. Ndzhelassil came to the cafe with a girl. According to eyewitnesses, the conflict between him and the other drunken Burger King visitors was motivated by racial hatred. Ray, a friend of François, a native of Gabon, is cited by one of the local media as writing that on August 17, François went to a club with his friends to celebrate the national holiday of his homeland. Then he went to Burger King with one of the girls he knew, where two drunken visitors started to bully him. “They called him ‘negro’ and just wanted to get rid of him” said Ray. According to him, Ndzhelassili was an excellent student — last year he became the student of the year at the university. He was engaged in dancing, football and boxing. François's parents had also lived in Russia for a long time. “They [the parents] trusted Russia, so they sent their children here to study. Now his dad and mom are old, how can you tell them that their only son died so easily… Why do people hate us?!” writes Ray in the regional media. On August 19, a court in Yekaterinburg arrested 23-year-old Danil Fomin for two months pending investigation for murdering Ndzhelassili. Fomin was charged under Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Murder,” which provides for imprisonment for up to 15 years. He admitted his guilt. A user on X (formerly Twitter) pleads for the media and activists to pay attention to the case: если не успеваете, обязательно посмотрите потом этот сегмент в записи. об убийстве Франсуа Нджелассили и раньше говорили НЕДОСТАТОЧНО, теперь на фоне пригожина боюсь всем вообще будет похуй. ЧЕЛОВЕКА УБИЛ РАСИСТ И ДРУГИЕ РАСИСТЫ ТЕПЕРЬ СОБИРАЮТ ЕМУ БАБЛО НА АДВОКАТА. ЭТО ПИЗДЕЦ — hellfire jr (@echolalialia) August 24, 2023 if you don’t have time, be sure to watch this segment later in the recording. about the murder of François Ndzhelassili and before they said NOT ENOUGH, now against the backdrop of Prigogine I'm afraid everyone will give a fuck. A MAN IS KILLED BY A RACIST AND OTHER RACISTS ARE NOW COLLECTING HIM [Fomin] MONEY FOR A LAWYER. THAT'S FUCKED UP The recording this X user is talking about is the Mediazona YouTube stream that included a piece on the murder. This is only the latest in a series of high-profile cases of racially based killings and assaults in Russia over the last two decades. Unfortunately, as Natalia Yudina, an expert from the analytical center SOVA that deals with statistics on various criminal cases and racism, said in an interview, there are no statewide statistics on hate crimes and crimes based on racial hatred in the country. According to SOVA's own calculations, such crimes were trending downwards from 2007 to 2018 when the interview was taken. If in 2007 there were hundreds of people killed a year, about 300 victims, in 2018 they counted 57 assaulted and 4 people murdered. Nevertheless, now an atmosphere of hatred and aggression is propagated on the national TV and social media because of the Russian aggression towards Ukraine. There is a long history of students from African countries studying in Russia (and, previously, in the USSR). The first students from the African continent started to arrive in the USSR in significant numbers during the period when decolonization processes began in many African countries at the end of the 1950s seeking affordable education.