The World : 2 Die in Soviet Ethnic Strife

Assailants in an ethnically torn region of Soviet Georgia ambushed a police patrol, killing two of its members, and seized more than 1,500 weapons in raids on police stations across the region, Soviet media said. Troops patrolled the riot-torn Abkhazia region, where 19 people have died in a week of violence between minority Abkhazians and ethnic Georgians. In the capital of Sukhumi, “fear hangs over the city,” the Georgian newspaper Zarya Vostoka said. The attack on the police patrol occurred Friday night in the village of Ostapi in Akbhazia, a Black Sea resort. Tass said assailants opened fire on the police with hunting rifles as they were clearing roadblocks. The violence reportedly was sparked by Abkhazian demands to secede from Georgia.