MOSCOW, Oct 12: Russian police rounded up more than 100 traders at a Moscow food market on Thursday in what authorities say is a campaign against illegal immigrants but critics say is ethnic cleansing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin this month ordered ministers to protect the "native population" from gangs with "an ethnic flavour" who he said control many markets.

Since then police have raided dozens of markets -- where many of the traders are immigrants from ex-Soviet republics.

A Reuters photographer at Moscow's Dorogomilovskaya market when police and immigrations officials raided it saw police herding dark-skinned traders onto a bus while one officer held a stack of their confiscated passports.

"As a result of our checks we detained more than 100 people who had violated Russia's immigration laws," a spokesman for the Federal Migration Service said. "It was just a routine operation."

Those detained were from Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Moldova, he said.

The SOVA Centre, a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against racism, said Putin's comments about markets "have been unequivocally interpreted as a call to ethnic cleansing."

Many Moscow restaurants get their supplies from the Dorogomilovskaya market, which is well known for its high quality fruit, vegetables, meat and spices.

Late on Thursday, many stalls had been covered up and the mood amongst traders was of resigned outrage.

"People have family, homes and business here," said one trader from the South Caucasus, who refused to give his name.—Reuters