VLADIKAVKAZ -- Hundreds of protesters gathered on September 15 in the center of Vladikavkaz to demand better security, one week after a deadly bomb attack at a market in the North Ossetian capital, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.
North Ossetian Deputy Interior Minister Soslan Sikoev held talks with the demonstrators after they demanded that local officials meet with them.
The protesters asked the local authorities to increase patrols and monitoring on the republic's borders with its volatile North Caucasian neighbors.
They also urged officials to eradicate corruption in law enforcement structures in the republic and to hold an objective investigation into the 2004 Beslan school-hostage tragedy that killed hundreds.
On September 9, a suicide bomber killed 17 and injured about 200 people in downtown Vladikavkaz. The car used by the bomber had license plates from neighboring Ingushetia.
North Ossetian authorities prevented an attack by a group of ethnic Ossetians on an Ingush village in North Ossetia after the suicide bombing.