| Agence France-Presse
(AFP) Date: 1 Sept 2003 Fading hope for onetime refugees in capital of Chechnya by Yana Dlugy GROZNY, Russia, Sept 1 (AFP) - In a corner of the Chechen capital of Grozny stands a three-story white concrete building crowded with the civilian casualties of the latest war in the Russian separatist republic. A onetime school, its bullet-scarred walls now house more than 600 Chechens who have come back to the republic from refugee camps where they fled as Russian troops poured into Chechnya in October 1999 to quell what the Kremlin said was a separatist insurgency. Officially, it is a temporary facility, where returning refugees live until something permanent is found for them in Grozny, a city of bombed-out buildings and piles of concrete and brick where apartment buildings used to stand. But the word temporary takes on a new meaning for the people here, who have spent years in the tarpaulin tents of refugee camps and have now returned to the shell of a once vibrant city. "We've been here for nearly two years," 52-year-old Akha Pokhsanova told AFP last week. "Came after almost two years in the tents." The Russian offensive four years ago destroyed thousands of homes and sent civilians fleeing to the refugee camps in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia. With the Kremlin keen to show that the war is over ahead of upcoming elections, the camps are all due to be shut by October 1 -- five days before a Moscow-organized presidential poll in Chechnya. Many of the refugees who have already returned are living in houses like this one -- a Soviet-style box of darkened hallways and rooms where entire families sleep, eat and pass the time. "There are seven of us in one room" -- she, her husband, two daughters, their husbands and a four-year-old granddaughter, she said. Like many here, Pokhsanova and her family returned hoping to get some kind of compensation for their destroyed house in Grozny and with it either reconstruct it or find another place to live. "But right now, we have completely lost hope," she said. Life in the tattered building, filled with hundreds of stories like Pokhsanova's, is a lonely mixture of fading hope, uncertainty about the future and daily routine. Families sleep in single rooms, the women cook and do laundry in common kitchens with water brought in buckets from outside. During the day, some go out into the city to earn some money doing odd jobs that are difficult to come by. Pokhsanova's brood lives on the 1,600 rubles (around 50 dollars) a month that she and her disabled husband receive from the regional administration. In the evening, if there is no rain, the residents mull around outside the house, smoking and talking around the handful of benches or socializing with residents of the apartment blocks that surround them. At night, they retreat to their rooms -- the darkened streets of Grozny are dangerous places, where kidnappings and murder by masked armed men are common. During the school year, many of the young people, including Pokhsanova's 20-something daughters and sons-in-law attend the city's universities. But during the summer they mull around the courtyard, trying to kill the stiffling boredom of the hot, dusty days. The white-brick house is by no means filled with dread. It is also filled with laughter and squeals of playing children. Liza, dark haired, slim and pretty, speaks with the carefree optimism of an 18-year-old who has something to look forward to. She came here to live with her mother a month ago, after finishing school in northern Chechnya. But she won't stay long -- in a few weeks she will go to Pyatigorsk, a city in southern Russia, to study English. And after her studies? "Of course I'll come back here, this is my home," she says, flashing a smile. Copyright (c) 2003 Agence France-Presse |