NINE people were hospitalised last week after a fight between about 300 migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan at Gazprom's Kovykta gas field in East Siberia.Several videos of the incident were posted on the Russian social network VK, which suggested the brawl began about noon local time on 23 June in a queue near a canteen.By the evening, it had spread to other parts of an office compound and temporary housing where migrants stay during their shifts.Some fighters were using sticks and steel bars as weapons.The Irkutsk regional department of the Russian Interior Ministry sent a group of investigators to the field to determine "active participants of the conflict that is believed to have started as an argument".Thousands of shift workers, mainly from former Soviet Union republics in Central Asia, are building infrastructure at the Kovykta field where state-controlled Gazprom must increase gas production quickly to fulfil its long-term supply contract with China.
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