Chechnya has been turned into a ghetto

Mass arrests of the refugees

On 25 May 2003, at 4:00 am, the Russian servicemen carried out an operation of mass arbitrary arrests of the refugees temporarily residing at their relatives' without registration in the Lenin district of the Chechen capital (4th micro-district, 47, Kirov street.).

Three "UAZ" and two "Ural" cars with the Russian servicemen drove up to the centre of compact residence of the Chechen refugees. The masked servicemen got off the cars and broke into the house. They made all the refugees who had not been registered to gather in the yard. Having heard the women calling for help, the Chechen militiamen got to the place and managed to free some detainees. The others were taken away by the Russian servicemen. As it became known the detainees are kept in the district military commandant's office of Grozny.

The tenants of the above-mentioned house in Kirov street of Grozny are the Chechen refugees who formerly lived in the tent camps of Ingushetia ("Sputnik", "Alina" and "Satsita") located in the vicinity of the stanitsa Orjonikidzevskaya (Sleptsovskaya) - those who retuned to the Chechen Republic and whose houses had been destroyed during the war. The eyewitnesses of the operation warn their relatives temporarily living in Ingushetia not to return to Chechnya, as it is not safe there.

A resident of Starie Ataghi was captured by the Russian servicemen

On 25 May 2003, at about 00:30 am, in the village Starie Ataghi of Grozny region, Chechnya, the employees of Russian force structures captured a local resident Mustdy Musaevich Sugaipov, born in 1972. Two APC and the "Ural" and "UAZ" cars with the number plates covered with mud, drove up to the house at 10, Kalinin street. The servicemen got off the cars and broke into the house of the Sugaipovs. Before detention they severely beat Mustdy Sugaipov. His relative Rivzan Sugaipov, born in 1964, was also beaten, as the latter asked them: "Tell me where you are taking him just to know where his body will be after you kill him".

Mustdy is married and has three children. He works as a tractor driver in the village and did not take part in military actions. According to the relatives of the detainee, Mustdy was taken to the military base of federal forces located in the village Khankala.

The neighbours of the Sugaipovs - Akhmadovs were also subject to the raid on the part of the same servicemen. Apty Yusupovich Akhmadov, temporarily living at his relatives is a refugee from Grozny. The Russian servicemen beat him and his mother, and took some household things, including a TV set and a video-camera. Besides that they left the furniture in the house and a car damaged as a result of shooting.

Information Centre of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, Press Release # 431