Kazakhs to mourn border deaths
President Nursultan Nazarbaev has announced a national day of mourning in Kazakhstan in honor of 14 border guards slain last week under mysterious circumstances.
The guards and a forest ranger were found dead at a checkpoint that was set ablaze along the Kazakh-Chinese border.
The bodies have been taken to the Kazakh city of Astana for DNA identification and forensic tests.
The whereabouts of 15th border guard who was deployed at the site remain unknown.
Last week, Nazarbaev called the incident a terrorist act but gave no indication of who may have been responsible.
Each summer, Kazakhstan sets up checkpoints along the Chinese border to prevent illegal harvesting of herbs on Kazakh territory.
Officials have said preliminary tests show that none of the dead men had alcohol in their blood.
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