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3 Chechen Boys Killed in Abandoned Ammo
Explosions
26.04.2004 MosNews
Three Chechen teenagers were killed Sunday when explosives they found
accidentally detonated,
Interfax reported, citing Chechen health ministry officials.
In the first incident, in a village near the town of Gudermes, three
teenagers found ammunition
from an anti-tank grenade launcher in a refuse bin. The ammunition
exploded as the boys attempted
to remove the device from the bin, killing two of them instantly and
injuring a third.
Anvar Nanayev, 13, and Khamzat Tamayev, 17, were killed on the spot.
Ansar Akhmadov, 13, was
hospitalized with serious injuries and is in a critical condition, the
news agency reported.
In another analogous incident in the town of Kurchaloi, teenagers
discovered an explosive device
and tried to take it apart, causing an explosion, Interfax reported.
One of the boys was killed
instantly, and two others sustained serious shrapnel injuries and were
hospitalized.
Local police are investigating both incidents.
Society for Threatened Peoples
Hamburg, 22 April, 2004
Fear of deportation: Chechen
refugees informing about their fate
Fearing their forced return into the hands of their persecutors in
Russia, refugees from Chechnya
who are living in Hamburg inform about their personal fate and the
alarming situation in their
homeland today, 22.4.2004. They are supported by the Society for
Threatened Peoples (GfbV), which
expects at least 50 Chechens to take part in this human rights action
in the center of Hamburg.
There are 203 Chechen refugees living in Hamburg, among them 101
children.
The states of Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Bavaria are treating
protection-seeking people from
Chechnya with startling severity, according to the Society for
Threatened Peoples: "The authorities
in these federal states are so cold-hearted to deport these refugees",
the GfbV criticizes. "It is
correct that these people aren't taken back to Chechnya. But they are
delivered to their
persecutors in the Russian Federation." Even if no deportation stop has
been declared in other
federal states, either, there are practically no forced deportations
from there, according to the
GfbV.
The GfbV urgently appeals to the Interior Minister of Hamburg to grant
refuge to the few refugees
from Chechnya who have escaped to the city. Contrary to the Hamburg
Administrative Court, the GfbV,
the UN refugee organisation UNHCR, amnesty international and several
administrative courts in other
German cities are convinced that there doesn't exist any "interior
refuge alternative" for
Chechens. This is proven - among other things - by the fact that five
Chechen refugees who had been
deported from Germany to Moscow in recent months were arrested directly
at the airport and haven't
resurfaced so far.
The history of Leyla K. is representative for many distressing refugee
fates. She tells: "I'm from
the Chechen village of Katyr-Yurt. On a single day, 4.2.2000, 360
people from my village died from
Russian bombs. After the first attack by the Russian airforce, we were
told that women and children
would be allowed to leave the village through a humanitarian corridor.
But as soon as they had
started in a convoy of cars with white flags, the bombers came back and
shot at them. I hadn't gone
with them and was sitting in a cellar with my five children. My
daughter became mentally ill
because of this experience. I, too, need regular medical care and have
presented several expert
opinions to the Hamburg Administrative Court. The court decided anyway
in the beginning of April
2004 that our family isn't politically persecuted and that we are going
to be deported."
Gesellschaft fuer bedrohte Voelker Europa-Referat Postbox 2024, D-37010
Goettingen Phone.:
+49/551/49906-0, Fax: +49/551/58028 E-Mail: europa@gfbv.de, Homepage:
www.gfbv.de
26.4.2004
Chechens detained on Ukrainian
border
UKRAINE, Chop, Zakarpatkaya Region. "15 residents of Chechnya have been
detained by border guards near Ukrainian-Slovak border. They are all
Russian nationals," Chop
border-guard detachment’s press service told PRIMA-News correspondent
on 23 April.
Among the 15 detained are nine women and children and also six men who
the border guards believe to be former Chechen militants. Stab wounds,
cuts and gun-powder burns
were found on their bodies.
Border guards’ press service believe that the wounds bear the signs of
injuries sustained in combat. The Chechens deny this. They plead not to
hand them over to
Russia.
A guide from the town of Svalyavy (Zakarpatskaya Region) was taking the
Chechens across the
restricted area when they were caught in the beam of a searchlight and
spotted by the duty border
guards.
Translated by Olga Sharp PRIMA-News Agency [2004-04-23-Ukr-03]
Akhmad
Kadyrov's forces set resistance
fighter’s house ablaze
Ruslan Isayev,
North Caucasus
- The house of a Chechen resistance fighter was burnt to the ground by
the security service of Chechnya's Moscow-backed leader Akhmad Kadyrov.
Several days ago
Kadyrov's armed men broke into Mukharba
Temiraliyev’s home in the Sagunty village in the Nozhai-Yurtovsky
district in eastern Chechnya. They beat his wife and aged parents and
set the house on fire.
The "Kadyrovites"
stated that from now on they will use this
method
on the families of resistance fighters who refuse to lay down their
arms.
Earlier this year,
Moscow-backed law enforcement agencies
arrested
scores of relatives of Chechen guerrillas in order to force them to
surrender and publicly recant their sins.
This was the fate
of Magomed Khanbiyev, former Defense
Minister of
the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. After his relatives were arrested in
early March, he surrendered to the Chechen authorities. And similar
cases have been reported in other parts of Chechnya.
Red
Cross to continue land mine education
in Chechnya
Timur Aliyev,
North Caucasus
- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will continue its
program to educate the population on mine dangers in Chechnya,
announced Luiza Khazhgeriyeva, coordinator of ICRC's mine awareness
programme in the North Caucasus.
"This year we will
place more emphasis on providing support to
local
initiatives. The danger of land mines to civilians is closely observed
not only by humanitarian organizations ... but also by those who work
with children and can see the consequences for civilians.
These
organizations would like to help in disseminating
information
about this danger as they have very good ideas, but often don't have
the means to do so," stated Khazhgeriyeva.
"Last year the Red
Cross undertook a similar project. A local
art
school wanted to organize a poster contest on land mine awareness and
they asked us to supply the prizes and poster material. So, of course,
we were more than happy to help them with this," she added.
And this year the
Red Cross will continue supporting similar
activities. "Different groups have suggested to us several land mine
awareness projects such as the Children's Creative House of
Achkhoi-Martan who would like to present a Land Mine Awareness Festival
for the children. And then there is Tamara Guzuyeva who would like to
direct a play about land
mines, and also Imran Usmanov who is planning on composing music around
this theme.
And composer Ali
Dimayev and poet Kosum Uspayev want to write
a song
about mine threats to children and teenagers. It's even possible that a
TV clip will come out of this."
The Red Cross has
not yet made a final decision which of these
activities to finance. "We will support only those projects we think
will have a long-term impact," declared Khazhgeriyeva.
Chechnya’s
reservoir threatened with water
pollution
Timur Aliyev,
North Caucasus
- Chechnya may eventually end up without safe drinking water, stated
Ilyas Tokayev, head of the Geology and Mining Division of Chechnya’s
Bureau of Natural Resources.
The reason for
this danger, he states, is that an oil deposit
has formed beneath the ground surface in Grozny.
No real threat is
as yet imminent; however, it could emerge at
any
given time because this deposit is now slowly moving toward the
Starosunzhensky reservoir, which provides drinking water for Grozny.
Abdulkasim
Khamadov of Chechen authority for environmental
supervision believes that, in general, suitable drinking water does not
exist in the country today. "Waste products from the petrochemical
refineries have impregnated the ground up to 17 meters in depth, which
is causing severe pollution of subsoil water."
According to him,
the presence of heavy metal, e.g. copper,
nitrogen, manganese, and aluminum, was discovered in nearly all the
main rivers throughout the republic such as in the Sunzha, Terek and
Argun.
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