MOSCOW (Reuters) - The top United Nations official in Russia has slammed
Moscow for forcing hundreds of Chechen refugees to return to their
strife-torn homeland despite Kremlin assertions to the contrary.
Russia last week closed a camp, herding hundreds of refugees into open
trucks in freezing temperatures ahead of its December 20 deadline to
close five camps in Ingushetia on the border with Chechnya. The U.N. has
said that nearly all of the 1,500 people in the camp at Aki Yurt had left.
Russia says only those who wanted to return home were being repatriated,
insisting it was safe for the refugees to go back to Chechnya.
But U.N. Resident Coordinator in Moscow Frederick Lyons, who is also
the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Russia, said on Monday people had been
"basically coerced into returning".
"Conditions were made more difficult, a level of psychological pressure
was put on them. Families were told that they had to leave by a certain
date or lose support," he told Reuters in an interview.
Many of the refugees are reluctant to return home to a province whose
infrastructure has been devastated by war. Many also fear mistreatment
at the hands of Russian forces.
According to U.N. figures some 95,000 Chechens have been living in
Ingushetia, driven out by a decade of fighting between federal forces
and separatists.
They include some 15,000 -- mostly women, children and elderly people
-- living in tents, according to Lyons.
Lyons said U.N. officials thought around half of the refugees had scattered
into surrounding areas, and that the U.N. was particularly concerned
about those who have returned.
"We do not have any idea what happened to those that returned (to Chechnya),"
he said.
U.N. agencies and other humanitarian bodies have been providing food,
shelter and medical care for the refugees, but said those in Ingushetia
were scared about their future.
"Tension has risen, there is an increasing sense of insecurity in the
region, and this may be part of the difficulties that the IDPs
(internally displaced people) are facing," he said.
"Our sense is that the vast majority under the current circumstances
do not want to go back," he added.
The situation in Chechnya looked to be calming earlier in the year.
But rebel attacks are on the increase and tension has heightened following
a mass hostage seizure in Moscow in October that ended in huge bloodshed.
Lyons said the U.N. was worried that refugees returning to Chechnya
would find living conditions considerably worse than in the camps,
especially in centres now being built.