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Police open fire in central Grozny, killing
three people, witnesses say
Police opened fire on a suspect in the Chechen capital on Saturday, killing him and two young bystanders, witnesses said. Two other bystanders were hospitalised with gunshot injuries. The shooting happened during the day on a main Grozny street, said Liza, who asked that her last name not be used. She said an unidentified man was fleeing when police opened fire on him. The man was killed and two bystanders, including a young female student, were also fatally wounded, witnesses said. Another two people were taken to the city hospital after suffering gunshot wounds. Authorities in Grozny blocked off the area and refused to comment. Liza told the Associated Press that she had been photographing Grozny when the shooting broke out. She said that she took photographs of the incident, but a soldier seized her camera. Russia's Interfax news agency, citing a Chechen Interior Ministry source, reported that two rebels were killed in a skirmish with police after resisting arrest in central Grozny. Citing its source, Interfax said another woman was killed and another wounded "in as yet unclear circumstances." Meanwhile, three soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in the latest rebel attacks and mine explosions in Chechnya, an official in the region's Kremlin-backed administration said Saturday. Rebels attacked federal positions 14 times over the past 24 hours, killing one soldier and wounding five, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another soldier was killed while trying to defuse an explosive device in the Naursky region, he said. A sapper died while trying to neutralize an explosive device near Goragorsk. Three soldiers were wounded in a shoot-out with rebels near Vedeno in southern Chechnya. One rebel was also killed, the official said. The Chechen official said that 200 people were detained across Chechnya in the previous 24 hours on suspicion of aiding the rebels. In the capital Grozny's busy central market, witnesses reported that soldiers beat and seized a young man on Saturday, forcing him into a car. No further details were available. Abductions are common in Chechnya, and have been blamed on federal troops, rebels and the security service run by the son of late Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed May 9 in an explosion at a public ceremony. Meanwhile, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported that the first Grozny- Moscow train will depart from the Chechen capital on Sunday morning. The direct railway link was broken off in 1999, when the current war between federal troops and insurgents in Chechnya began. Chechnya was de-facto independent for nearly three years before that, after separatists fought the Russian army to a standstill in a 20-month war and forced its withdrawal.
Refugees ordered to leave tent camp Satsita Ruslan Isayev, North Caucasus – The Ingush migration authorities recently notified the refugees in the tent camp Satsita that they must leave by June 1 as an official order was issued to close down the camp on that date. However, they did not present any document to back this up. Adlan Daudov, head of the Public Council of Refugees, thinks this is just another example of the intimidation refugees have been subjected to for the past four years. "We’ve gotten used to it by now. Nevertheless, we’re not going to leave ... We have no place to go. There is no safety in Chechnya, not with houses being demolished there. And the places they offered to move us into in Ingushetia lack even the basic amenities that we have in our tents," he told our Prague Watchdog correspondent. Yet some families, who were unable to take the pressure any longer, decided to leave. And according to Russian human rights defender Vladimir Shaklein, who was in Satsita a week ago, any refugee who refuses to return to Chechnya will be blackmailed into doing so. “I’ve received dozens of petitions from Satsita asking that we protect the people from the threats of the authorities. They’ve been told that if they refuse to leave, their names will be removed from the restitution lists and they won’t get any compensation for loss of property sustained during the war. And there have also been threats that the electricity and gas will be shut off in the camp. Parents are especially fearful of taking their teenage sons back to Chechnya. They could be accused of aiding the rebels and be arrested during mop-up operations,” stated Shaklein. Another tactic they use is to focus on food products sold in the camp. Employees of the Interior Ministry's units that fight against economic crime come to the camp and buy some sample items. If they report that something illegal was going on, huge penalties are imposed on the guilty parties. In Daudov’s opinion, this is all done just to force the refugees to leave the camp. And those who finally cave in and do leave, receive free transportation for themselves and their belongings, and are also offered small modular houses to live in. “However, these houses are made of cheap material and will not last long; after a rainy autumn they’ll collapse,” he added. About 1,200 refugees from Bella, the camp that was closed down in the fall of 2003, now live in Satsita and all of them complained to the Russian Interior Ministry about the camp’s illegal shutdown. A Moscow district court ruled that the actions of the Ingush migration authorities were legal, but the verdict was overturned by the Moscow City Court, which will now retry the case. If it turns out that Satsita will also be closed down, the refugees will file another lawsuit against the Ingush authorities.'
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