A group of African refugees living in a southwest Moscow field reported Monday that their cardboard shack had been burned down by the police.


Police officers visited the refugees' encampment, located near the Park Place office complex on Leninsky Prospekt, on Sunday night and told the dozen or so refugees living there to move out, said one of the residents, Blaise Joau Videira.


The police then set fire to the small cardboard structure in which the refugees have lived since the police last torched their home on Sept. 18, said Videira, a 26-year-old Angolan. On Monday, Videira said he did not know what the group would do for shelter, because the police had forbidden them to return to the field where they have lived since last spring.


A program director at the Moscow office of Equilibre, the French aid agency, said Monday that such burnings are common.


"That always happens, with Afghans, Somalis, everyone," said Mamar Marzuk.


Although Videira had said in a Thursday interview that the group of refugees planned to sleep on Equilibre's doorstep until they received some assistance, Marzuk said Monday afternoon that he had had no contact with the refugees from the field.