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Girl, 9, Mauled to Death by Stray Dogs

A pack of stray dogs has mauled a 9-year-old girl to death in a far eastern village, in the second such case in the region this year, a news report said.

In the wake of the girl's death, police and volunteers in the village of Tiksi, in the Sakhi republic, have started patrolling school yards and other lots where stray dogs may gather, Interfax reported Tuesday.

Parents in Tiksi have also been told not to leave their children unattended on the street and to accompany them on their way to school, the regional government said.

In February, stray dogs killed a 9-year-old boy in another Yakut village, prompting public outcry.

Many Russians consider stray dogs a nuisance and a hazard, and in the absence of humane animal-control measures by the government, some resort to vigilante actions.

A few days before the February attack on the boy, police in the far eastern city of Vladivostok said they had charged a local man with cruelty to animals for feeding 1,000 stray dogs with food laced with deadly poison.


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