Some 3,500 people said missing in Chechnya

[No dateline, as received] Some 3,500 people have gone missing in Chechnya since the launch of the second Chechen campaign. Ekho Moskvy radio says this figure was made public on 28 October by the director of the independent press centre in Groznyy, Kheda Saratova, and journalist Aleksandr Mnatsakanyan.

The organizers of a news conference handed out fill-in forms brought from Chechnya containing names of people who have been unaccounted for since they were abducted, the Ekho Moskvy correspondent said. The forms also featured a call by businessman [and former Chechen presidential candidate] Malik Saydullayev, whose brother and sister had been kidnapped too, [for abducted people's families] to rally in search of their loved ones.

Saratova told Ekho Moskvy she was herself surprised at the tremendous number of abducted people. She said the problem needed to be dealt with.

Chechen prosecutors reject human rights orgs info about 4,000 missing

28.10.2003

MOSCOW, October 28 (Itar-Tass) -- Chechen Deputy Prosecutor Alexander Nikitin rejected information of several human rights organisations that nearly 4,000 people are missing in the republic. "According to our information about 2,000 people were put on the lists of missing in Chechnya since 1994," Nikitin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. Nearly 600 people were found since February 2000 when the Chechen prosecutor's office began working.

The Chechen deputy prosecutor noted that people were put on the lists of missing when "there were reasons to believe that they were abducted by criminals or killed." There are people in the list "who got lost in 1994-1999 but applications about their disappearance were filed already after the prosecutor's office had been created on February 8, 2000," Nikitin emphasised. According to available information most abductions of people were committed in Chechnya in 1994-1999 when law enforcement agencies almost did not work.

"During checks it often turns out that people who are considered missing did not disappear at all," Nikitin remarked. "We have recently received an application from the human rights organisation Memorial with the list of people they consider missing but during a check their relatives said the opposite. Many of them were just at home and there were no abductions," he noted.

The most indicative incident occurred with former vice-premier of the so-called Maskhadov's government Dig Altimirov. Representatives of international organisations including the Council of Europe requested about his disappearance. The Chechen administration ascertained that he was at home.

The Chechen deputy prosecutor pledged that each request about disappearing people is checked and nearly 1,500 criminal proceedings were instituted in these cases.

The number of refugees returning to Chechnya increases

INGUSHETIA, October 28, Caucasus Times - In 27 days of October, this year, over 2.000 refugees have returned from tent camps of Ingushetia to the Chechen Republic, Alkha Khisimikov, the coordinator of the Chechen Republican group with Ingushetia officials facilitating the return of internally displaced persons to Chechnya said in his interview with the Caucasus Times correspondent.

"At total, as of October 27, 475 families (2.385 persons) of the displaced persons have left Ingushetia and returned to Chechnya. 147 tents were taken down. Besides, there at least 10 families who are about to leave the refugee camps very soon," Mr. Khisimikov said.

Noteworthy, the observers say, the process of returning of the refugees intensified after a the presidential election in Chechnya. While some of the returning Chechen people hope for the situation in Chechnya to be stable, the majority of the refugees come back because of hopelessness.

"I don't believe anything to be changed for the better in Chechnya in a near future," says Luisa Maskhudova, a resident of "Sputnic" camp. "Nevertheless, I am going home very soon. I've had enough, besides I'm not feeling well. I won't be able to survive the fifth winter season with my poor health in these tents," the woman said.

Malika Suleymenova, Caucasus Times, Ingushetia

RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 7, No. 205, Part I, 29 October 2003

UN, OFFICIALS VISIT GROZNY.

UN humanitarian aid specialists and World Health Organization officials have visited Grozny to discuss expanding programs to assist both the Chechen population and displaced persons still in neighboring Ingushetia who want to return to Chechnya, ITAR-TASS reported on 28 October. Chechen Prime Minister Anatolii Popov said there are now 55,000 displaced persons in Ingushetia, approximately 20 percent fewer that at the beginning of the year, and that more are likely to return to Chechnya if humanitarian-aid programs are expanded. Ingushetia's President Murat Zyazikov briefed President Putin on 27 October on the repatriation process, stressing, as he always does, that it is purely voluntary, Interfax reported.

LF