A group of experts under the Russian Interior Ministry on Tuesday started an investigation into the murder of a Peruvian student in Russia's southern city of Voronezh, Russian news media reported.

"Moscow detectives are joining their Voronezh colleagues. All versions of the crime will be checked including racial motives behind the murder," a regional police official was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

A group of some 20 local ruffians carrying knives and sticks brutally beat three foreign students in Voronezh on Sunday evening.

Angeles Hurtado Enrique, an 18-year-old Peruvian student of the Architecture and Construction University, died of injuries later.

This is not the first time that foreign students were attacked in Voronezh as a result of rising racial intolerance. Two foreign students had been killed and another 10 injured in similar incidents over the past two years.

This year, students from Angola, Rwanda and China have also been attacked in Voronezh.

A protest against the murders of foreign students was organized by the Nashi youth movement in central Voronezh on Tuesday.

Over 150 people from various Russian cities and some foreign students gathered at the Proletarii cinema house to protest against crimes committed against foreign students in the city, particularly the murder of the Peruvian student.

"We want to draw attention of the general public to the problems of racial and national discrimination," the organization's press center said.

Voronezh regional prosecutor Alexander Ponomaryov said those responsible for assaulting foreign students will be caught and punished.

The prosecutor and police chief of Voronezh pledged to identify the assailants in Sunday's attack on foreign students in Voronezh within one or two days, the Itar-Tass said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 12, 2005)