Refugees in Ingushetia being removed from humanitarian aid lists
Ruslan Isayev, North Caucasus – New inspections have been underway in Chechen
refugee camps in Ingushetia. This time the Moscow-backed Chechen government's
commission for forcibly displaced people has been checking the refugees according
to the lists.
Members of the commission walk tent by tent and put down the surname of every
person whom they find there. Those who are not present are removed from the list
thus losing their right to humanitarian aid.
The members of the commission claim these measures are taken in order to identify
those who have been receiving humanitarian aid both in Chechnya and Ingushetia,
and to find the so-called “dead souls”.
However, these efforts have had a totally opposite effect. A number of refugees
have been removed from the list at the time when they were gone from the camp
to work or run an errand. No one had notified them about the inspections.
Many refugees literally flocked Chechnya to get their documents after having found
about the possibility to get compensated for their lost homes. And they were mostly
these people who have been removed from the lists.
During one day only, some five hundred people were taken off the list in the Sputnik
refugee camp in the Ordzhonikidzevskaya village. In all the camps in Ingushetia
this measure affects a few thousand refugees.