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Over 3,000 Civilians Killed in Chechnya in Last 5 Years — HR Group Created: 07.04.2005 MosNews More than 3,000 Chechen civilians have been killed in the republic over the past five years, the Memorial human rights center reported Thursday. "We registered 3,101 murders within the period of 2000-2005," Dmitry Grushkin, spokesman of Memorial was quoted by Interfax as saying. Besides, 1,543 locals were kidnapped in 2002-2005 and 892 of them are still reported missing, he said. However, the authorities disagree. The problem of kidnapping is still acute, but it is now not nearly as serious as it used to be, mostly single cases, Ekho Moskvy radio station quoted Rudnik Dudaev, head of the Chechen State Defense council, as saying. Some human rights groups estimate that approximately 20,000 civilians were killed during the period 1999-2002. However, other groups claim that the civilian losses in Grozny alone were about 40,000 during the Russian bombing campaign. The separatist leadership put the number of civilians killed during military action, murdered and those who disappeared later in the second war at about 150,000. A spokesman from the separatist rebels told the Shariah news and information agency that the overall civilian casualties in the republic over the last two Russian military campaigns in Chechnya were at least 230,000. Northern Caucasus: Commission allocates €22,5 million for victims of conflict in Chechnya IP/05/400 - Brussels, 7 April 2005 The European Commission has approved a €22,5 million humanitarian aid package to support victims of the conflict in Chechnya, the first tranche of funding for 2005. The recipients will include internally displaced persons (IDPs) and vulnerable groups in central and southern Chechnya as well as IDPs in Ingushetia and Dagestan. Funds are being allocated via the Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid, ECHO, a service of the European Commission under the responsibility of Commissioner Louis Michel. Assistance to vulnerable groups will be provided in all sectors: protection, food, non-food, water and sanitation, health, shelter, education, psycho-social assistance and mine-risk education. Programmes will be implemented by international agencies operating in the region. Since the beginning of the conflict in autumn 1999, ECHO has allocated €148 million to the crisis, making the EU the largest donor in the region. More than five years into this conflict, humanitarian needs remain acute in the Northern Caucasus. Out of a population of around 800,000, nearly 200,000 people remain displaced within Chechnya, many of whom just returned from Ingushetia after the closure of tent camps there. Conditions of living for the whole population in Chechnya, particularly in Grozny, are extremely difficult. Outside Chechnya, 35,000 people are still displaced in Ingushetia and some 10,000 in Dagestan, most of them in dire conditions. Insecurity continues to prevail, with military operations going on, especially in the South, and regular rebel attacks on federal forces and local militia. The civilian population continues to suffer harshly in a conflict where they are frequently exposed to violence. This new financial support will allow to provide basic and supplementary food for the 250,000 most vulnerable people in the three republics, mostly in Chechnya. The decision will also fund primary and mother and child health care and support surgery, traumatology and rehabilitation services for the war-wounded and disabled. It will help provide primary education and vocational training, as well as psychological assistance for the people, especially children, affected by war-related trauma. The funding will cover the truck distribution of drinking water in Grozny (where the population is estimated around 100,000 people) and the improvement of sanitation facilities. It will also allow IDPs in Ingushetia and Dagestan to have access to more decent shelter conditions and water/sanitation facilities. The delivery of aid will depend, as always, on access and security conditions, which remain extremely difficult. All humanitarian aid organisations continue to work on a remote-control basis in Chechnya, without a permanent expatriate presence. http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/russia/intro/ip05_400.htm EU gives $28 million in aid to Chechnya By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Published April 7, 2005 BRUSSELS -- The European Commission approved Thursday a $28.9 million humanitarian aid package to support victims of the conflict in Chechnya. The recipients of the package will include internally displaced persons and vulnerable groups in central and southern Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan. The funds are being allocated through the European Union's director general for humanitarian aid's office, which will provide protection, food, non-food, water and sanitation, health, shelter, education, psychosocial assistance and mine-risk education to all three areas. "This new financial support will allow to provide basic and supplementary food for the 250,000 most vulnerable people in the three republics, mostly in Chechnya," said the commission. "The decision will also fund primary and mother and child health care and support surgery, traumatology and rehabilitation services for the war-wounded and disabled." The European Union has been the largest donor in the region. Since the beginning of the conflict in autumn 1999, the EU's Humanitarian Aid and Development Office has allocated $190 million (148 million euros) to the crisis. April 8th 2005 · Prague Watchdog European Commission to promote “export of democracy” in the Caucasus By Timur Aliyev NAZRAN, Ingushetia – The European Commission intends to promote the development of civil society in Chechnya and Ingushetia through projects of local public organizations, announced Guillermo Martinez, a member of the Delegation of the European Commission to Russia, during his April 5-7 visit to Ingushetia. According to him, the EC, in making human rights a priority, is going to develop democratic initiatives in Russia. “It will be kind of an export of democratic values,” said Martinez. Two projects have been already underway since February 1. One is the Chechen Committee of National Salvation’s “Responsibility for human rights violations in the Northern Caucasus”, and the other is the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society’s coverage of the human rights situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia. One of the aims of Martinez’s trip is to examine the initial results of these projects. “I visited the offices of these organizations and talked with their teams. Work has successfully begun, but of course there are some difficulties, particularly in connection with the safety of the project members,” he added. He spent a lot of time studying human rights violations in Ingushetia, meeting with representatives of the republic, with the ombudsman and with members of human rights organizations. And while meeting with families of the people who have been abducted, he received a list of 160 names of those who disappeared in the past two years. Martinez also visited some refugee camps that house people from the Prigorodny district in neighbouring North Ossetia, and said the conflict there “lacks international attention. After Beslan, ethnic relations in that area have greatly deteriorated.” He also met with members of civic organisations in Chechnya and Ingushetia and presented them with a new project within the European Union's program “European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights”, one of the priorities of which is the battle against human rights violations in the Northern Caucasus. “We would like to receive grant proposals from NGOs who are not based in Moscow but are actually here, so they can work independently in the future,” Martinez added.