A human rights group sharply criticised Russia’s efforts to return displaced Chechens to their ruined homeland, saying on Tuesday that Chechnya is too dangerous and that dozens of civilians there are killed by Russian military forces every month.
Between 50 and 80 Chechen civilians are killed by federal troops monthly, most of them young men who are detained in operations ostensibly meant to weed out militants, said Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the International Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.
In a small republic whose population has been reduced by more than half to about 250 000 in a decade of warfare, Rhodes said, ”The process by which young Chechen men are being abducted and murdered … is on a huge scale in a world context.”
Russian officials have not released casualty figures for civilians in Chechnya, and say that Chechen accounts of abuses during the search operations are exaggerated.
But Rhodes said the number was a conservative estimate for the past six months based on research by human rights groups and reports from Chechen civilians. He said it was not decreasing, despite a March order from the top general in the region designed to cut down on abuse of civilians during the search operations.
”The army stationed in Chechnya is absolutely demoralised and does not even listen to the its commander,” said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a longtime Russian human rights activist who is president of the International Helsinki Foundation.
Rhodes and other members of the group recently returned from a trip to Chechnya and the neighbouring Ingushetia region, which has absorbed the bulk of the refugees. They said Russia must not try to persuade or force displaced Chechens to return home from Ingushetia until their security can be guaranteed.
The group claimed Russian authorities plan to shut off electricity, water and other services at camps in Ingushetia where about 50 000 displaced Chechens live, effectively forcing them to return to Chechnya.
They said officials had used this tactic about three weeks ago at a camp inside Chechnya and that its residents have returned to the capital, Grozny, where they live in temporary housing.
In a dormitory on the outskirts of Grozny, Yusupo Zakriyev, a former metalworker whose house on the city’s outskirts burned during the 1994-96 war in Chechnya, said last week that officials from the Russian-backed administration had persuaded him to return from a camp with his family.
”They promised that we would have no needs, and now we are in these awful conditions. Our only food is tea and bread,” said Zakriyev (43).
”I was afraid to go to Grozny and now I am not afraid to admit it: To go to Grozny is to go one’s death,” he said.
Leyla Bakasheva (36) said her family was bused to Grozny on June 30 from a camp in peaceful northern Chechnya after the military razed the tents there. ”They didn’t ask us, they forced us to” leave, she said.
The Russian minister in charge of restoring Chechnya, Vladimir Yelagin, was to travel to Ingushetia on Tuesday to discuss the issue of the return of refugees, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Alexeyeva said Russian efforts to return displaced people to Chechnya appeared aimed at removing the camps themselves, which have become symbols of the plight of Chechen civilians, and at proving the government’s claim that life in Chechnya is returning to normal.
Despite that claim, rebel attacks continue to kill Russian troops almost daily, and the Russian military continues to shell suspected rebel bases and conduct the search operations.
Russian troops withdrew from Chechnya in defeat in 1994-96 war, but returned in 1999 after rebels invaded a neighbouring region and after apartment-building bombings that the Kremlin blamed on the rebels killed 300 people in Russian cities. – Sapa-AP