Saturday, September 20, 2003

Water cut off to pressure Chechens to return home

SLEPTSOVSK: Russian authorities on Friday cut off water supplies to a refugee camp on Ingushetia’s border with Chechnya, increasing pressure on the Chechen refugees to return to their war-torn homeland.

The measure followed a similar move on Wednesday that saw electricity cut off to the Bella camp, home to around 1,000 refugees. “Officials came and showed us a paper ordering the water to be cut,” one of the refugees, Aslan said. “They say they’re not planning to force us to return, but this comes to the same thing,” he said.

Pro-Russian authorities in Chechnya have announced on several occasions that the tent cities in neighbouring Ingushetia, that house 10,000 refugees who fled the war launched by Russian troops in the southern republic four years ago, will be closed by October 1.

Relief agencies have voiced concern that this could mean a forced return of refugees by the Russian authorities, particularly since Wednesday when migrations officials barred NGOs from entering the Bella camp and the adjoining Bart and Sputnik camps.

Leila Djeitova, who heads the Ingush NGO for aid to refugees Vesta, denounced “a situation in which the authorities say one thing and do another”. Another NGO official said the water and power cuts and the bar on NGO access to the camps were designed to force the refugees to returned to Chechnya. “They are left with no other alternative, as nothing is done to enable them to stay in Ingushetia,” the official said.

AFP