Graves of Turkish soldiers and officers killed in the Crimean War have been vandalized in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol.
The leader of Azeri community on the Black Sea peninsula, Raqim Qumbatov, said on October 13 that metal Islamic crescents and stars on gravestones in a Sevastopol cemetery had been removed or damaged.
A video report by online news site Vesti.az also showed that road signs pointing to the graveyard and a memorial to Turkish soldiers who died during the 1853-1856 Crimean war had been removed.
Qumbatov said that before Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March, the signs and cemetery had been cared for properly.
Crimean authorities have not commented on the vandalism.
It comes amid what activists is a crackdown on Crimean Tatars, a Muslim minority group whose members largely opposed the annexation.
Based on reporting by Vesti.az, crimea.kz and e-crimea.info
