Third New Year for sect living in US Embassy

December 31, 1980

Seven members of a fundamentalist Christian sect face their third New Year cramped in a small basement room in the US Embassy, where they took refuge almost 30 months ago. The seven Pentecostalists, from Chernogorsk in central Siberia, rushed past Soviet guards into the embassy in June 1978 and said they would leave only after they received visas from the Soviet authorities to emigrate. Since then they have lived in a small room fitted with a sink, stove, and refrigerator.