| eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 25/6/2004 Purges in refugee camps After 3 p.m. on June 23, 2004, over 100 officers of Ingush security agencies cordoned off the camp for refugees from the Chechen republic situated on the territory of a dairy farm in the village of Altiyevo. There are approximately 1,200 inhabitants in the camp. But only 300 of them have registration certificates, the others are taken off the books because of the authorities' policy of extruding the refugees to the territory of Chechnya. All inhabitants of the camp, including women and under age people, underwent an examination, which was accompanied by beatings and abuses. Military men led all men to a wash-house, stripped them naked, searched and beat them. They threat them, "If you don't leave in two days, it will be bad for you!" The special operation ended at 8:10 p.m. The military men detained 60 refugees of different sexes and ages and took them away. The detainees were conveyed to a temporary detention isolator. 23 people, mainly those ill or in years, were set free after awhile, some of them being fined for not having a registration certificate. As of 12:00 a.m. June 24, 37 people are still detained. Similar special operations have been conducted in other places of compact residence of refugees from Chechnya. 27 people were detained and later released in the MTF 2 refugee center in the village of Nesterovskaya. 2 people were detained in the Logovas refugee center in the town of Nazran. The number of people detained in the village of Troitskaya is unknown. Source: Representative Office of the Human Rights Center "Memorial" (Nazran, Ingushetia) 25.6.2004 Arrests of Chechen Refugees Continue INGUSHETIA, Nazran. (Information Centre ORChD - Organisation of Russian and Chechen Friendship) On 24 June, siloviki (members of various security forces) arrested 16 men and teenagers from Chechen refugee camp SMU-4 in the town of Ordzhonikidzevskaya. People arrested on 23 June from the refugee camp in the village of Altiyevo were today removed, with sacks over their heads, from the Nazran ROVD (District Department of Internal Affairs) building where they had been detained overnight. Relatives, who had gathered at the entrance to the building, witnessed the detainees being put into vehicles and driven away to an unknown destination. On the morning of 24 June, the ROVD in Sunzhensky released all 28 men detained the evening before at refugee camp MTF-2 in the town of Trontsky. The refugees were released after the ORChD Chechen-Ingushetian regional branch appealed to the Sunzhensky District office of the public prosecutor. Translated by Sue-Ann Harding PRIMA News Agency [2004-06-24-Ingush-03] eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 25/6/2004 Supply of electricity, gas to refugee centers cut off The supply of electricity and gas to some places of compact residence of Chechen refugees on the territory of Ingushetia was cut off on June 24. As of June 25, there is no supply of gas and electricity to the refugee centers Kristall and Logovas in Nazran, the refugee center on the territory of a dairy farm in the village of Altiyevo, and in several refugee centers in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya. Ingush authorities do not give any comments on the situation. A spokesman for the deputy head of the Ingush government responsible for refugees and internally displaced persons has said they have no information on such facts at all. The Ingush migration service and administrations of settlements on the territory of which the refugee centers are situated have given no information on the matter either. "Employees of the Nazran electricity supply company and gas service who cut off the supply yesterday confessed there was a special order from "the higher authorities" to cut off places where Chechen refugees lived in Ingushetia from live support facilities," Magomed Isayev living in the Kristall refugee center said to the Caucasian Knot correspondent. "They told us that only the supply of electricity and gas was cut off for that moment and the situation could worsen later. So they advised us that we should go home somewhat quicker." Author: Malika Suleymanova, CK correspondent Source: Caucasian Knot Refugees from Russia's Chechnya Flee Police Raids Fri Jun 25, 2004 10:37 AM ET NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) - Chechen refugees fled back into their war- ravaged homeland in southern Russia from the former safe haven of Ingushetia Friday for fear of more police raids and other reprisals after a bloody rebel attack. Russian police raided refugee camps in their hunt for the rebels who killed more than 100 police, security officials and civilians in Ingushetia early Tuesday in the biggest armed operation carried out in the region. Refugees, who fled to neighboring Ingushetia to escape fighting after Russian troops poured back into Chechnya in 1999, said police had detained dozens of men. A senior official in Ingushetia, which shelters more than 50,000 refugees, said police had arrested several of them on suspicion of involvement in Tuesday's attacks that dealt a major blow to Kremlin claims the situation was stabilizing in Chechnya. "People whose men were not taken hurried to leave the camp," said a 28-year-old refugee, who gave her name as Malikan, a camp near the regional capital, Nazran, focus of the rebel attack. Refugees were packing cars and trucks with their belongings ready to leave, she said. She said police arrested her husband Wednesday and officials turned off the gas and power supply to the former collective farm barns were they had settled. "They showed us somebody's shirt and said it was rebels' clothing. But most people wear those clothes. I saw them throw a grenade at one man, then they began to swear at him and beat him." Other refugees said that with a three-day mourning period drawing to a close they feared reprisals by locals who lost relatives in Tuesday's attacks. Rebels killed police, civilians and soldiers and seized buildings before vanishing after an attack that took security forces by surprise. According to some estimates, as few as three rebels died in the attack. Police said some rebels were local Ingush, and others from Chechnya, where separatists have fought Moscow's rule for a decade. |