UN focuses attention on Chechen refugee problem

Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, told a December 10 conference on "Catastrophe in Chechnya: Escaping the Quagmire," that more than 300,000 Chechens are still displaced from their home villages and towns--including 8,000 in Dagestan and 190,000 within Chechnya. He estimated that some 16,000 refugees have returned to Chechnya from Ingushetia since January of 2003; some of these returns, he said, were taking place "under pressure."

A spokesman for UNHCR told a December 9 press briefing in Geneva that as of the previous day, some 180 residents of the Alina camp in Ingushetia had moved to the Statsita camp. That number is more than triple the number of new tents that have been installed in the latter facility, and only thirty-five of those fifty-four new tents have been connected to the gas supply. The UNHCR website references Medecins sans Frontieres (Physicians without Borders) as calculating that Statsita had enough space for only five more tents. The website said that as of December 9 some 638 displaced persons remain in the Alina camp, which the Ingush and Russian authorities are in the process of closing.

The December 10 conference was co-sponsored by the Jamestown Foundation, the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, the New Atlantic Initiative of the American Enterprise Institute, Amnesty International, Freedom House, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

December 17, 2003, Volume IV, Issue 46 - The Jamestown Foundation, Washington, DC CHECHNYA WEEKLY: News and analysis on the crisis in Chechnya

Children suffer the ravages of war

One-third of all newborn infants in Chechnya now have birth defects. That is just one of the devastating statistics cited by Chechen surgeon Khassan Baiev in his remarks to the December 10 conference. Other haunting data from Dr. Baiev, author of the equally haunting book The Oath (see the review in the December  15 issue of Chechnya Weekly):

--According to some estimates, 70 percent of Chechnya's territory is now contaminated as a result of the two wars. Defoliants and other environmentally harmful weapons have led to diseases such as intestinal disorders.

--Infant mortality is now twenty-six per thousand in Chechnya; that is four times the U.S. rate.

--Some 40 percent of the republic's children are suffering sight or hearing pathologies. The rate of childhood cancer has increased.

--Symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome are ubiquitous; it is not unusual for men in their twenties to suffer heart attacks.

Dr. Baiev now serves as head of the International Committee for the Children of Chechnya, which ships prosthetics, hearing aids and other medical supplies to the republic.

Donations to the Committee from U.S. taxpayers are tax-deductible; for more information see its website at http://www.chechenchildren.org. Or write to the committee at P.O. Box 381305, Cambridge, MA 02238, U.S.A., or e-mail info@chechenchildren.org <mailto:info@chechenchildren.org>.

December 17, 2003, Volume IV, Issue 46 - The Jamestown Foundation, Washington, DC CHECHNYA WEEKLY: News and analysis on the crisis in Chechnya

Ekho Moskvy 26 December 2003  [BBC Monitoring]

Russian Duma election: More voted than were registered in some regions

Sensational official results for the State Duma election in Ingushetia and Chechnya were announced by Central Electoral Commission [CEC] chairman Aleksandr Veshnyakov today.

Rosbalt news agency quotes Veshnyakov as saying that the number of people who took part in the parliamentary election in these republics was 11 per cent higher than those actually registered to vote.

Checks by the CEC have shown that the number of people who voted in some other Federation entities also exceeded the number of registered voters.

[Passage omitted]

In Moscow Region, Veshnyakov said, the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of registered voters by nearly 4.5 per cent, while in Kaluga Region the figure was 5 per cent.