| 18.9.2003 Tent camp for refugees being closed in Ingushetia Nazran, RUSSIA. A passport-checking operation began on the early morning of September 17 in the “Bela” tent camp for displaced Chechens in Sleptsovskaya, Ingushetia. It was conducted by officers of the Ingush ministry of internal affairs’ migration service. The Ingush migration service intends to close this camp and to relocate its inhabitants to Chechnya or some other place in Ingushetia. From the beginning of September the displaced persons in this camp have been subjected to harsh and uncivilized pressure from the camp’s chief, officials, police that are urging them to vacate the site. On that day migration officers were confiscating temporary registration cards from refugees, and one woman refugee was forced to let them have her passport. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) are requesting the authorities to find viable alternative accommodation sites before the camp would be shut down. Vera Soboleva, who works for the UNHCR office in Moscow, told PRIMA that in late August a UNHCR team together with members from other humanitarian agencies and representatives of the Ingush authorities found in Ingushetia 10 buildings suitable for temporary accommodation of displaced Chechens. According to Ms. Soboleva, there are 140 rooms in these houses which need some minor improvements to make them suitable for living. She said that foreign relief organizations are now deciding which of them would repair this or that building. These buildings are specifically meant for those displaced in “Bela” that do not want to return to Chechnya. Several families would be moved to the “Satsita” camp in the same locality in which UNHCR workers are planning to set up extra tents on September 18. In the meantime, the “Bela” tent camp, which, according to international law, could be liquidated only after voluntary relocation of its inhabitants to alternative accommodation sites suitable for living, was closed for journalists and members of human rights organizations on September 16. The Ingush police did not allow any of them into the camp. The day before the camp was visited by Akhmed Parchiyev, chief of the Ingush migration service. He was demanding that people leave the camp, while law enforcement officers were telling street traders to remove their stalls from the area adjoining the camp. There were also attempts to cut gas in the camp on September 17. However, after the UNHCR intervened, the Ingush authorities promised to clear off debts to the gas supplier and gas supply was resumed. People working for the “Ingushenergo” electricity company said that earlier in the day electricity was cut in the tent camp on instructions by the head of this company. PRIMA News Agency |