Chechen refugees in Ingushetia protest against Russian soldiers in neighbourhoodTimur Aliyev, North Caucasus - A protest meeting took place on November 3 between refugee camps Satsita and Alina near the station of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia. Approximately 200 Chechen women from four neighbouring refugee camps went out with posters, demanding from the top Russian military command to remove check-points set up by the Interior Ministry troops in the immediate vicinity of the refugee camps.
The posters read: "A refugee camp is no garrison. Leave!", "We, Chechens, are the hostages of the Russian military", "They are terrorizing us", "Liberate the refugee camp". "We run away from the war and the soldiers in Chechnya, and now they have sent them here!" the women were shouting.
On October 25, the four refugee camps with people displaced by force from the Chechen Republic - Satsita, Bela, Alina and Sputnik - were encircled by a large number of Russian soldiers. Federal servicemen started to settle around the perimeter of the four camps and set up check-points. Armed soldiers of the Interior Ministry forces started walking around the territory of the camps and firing flares in the night.
According to the refugees, Russian servicemen and local policemen tried to carry out a sweep in the camps. They stopped people on streets and checked their documents. "In the evening, I went out of my camp and wanted to pass through to the neighbouring camp Satsita," said Shamsudin Idigov, an inhabitant of refugee camp Bela. "I was stopped by soldiers who asked for my documents and warned me that next time I would not go there after dusk."
Chechen human rights activist Sulumbek Tashtamirov, known for his recent hunger strike protest, said that the women are going to continue with the meeting. Indeed, some 150 women and children met again on the following day.
The official explanation for the new neighbourhood of the refugees and the army is to ensure the security of the refugee camps' inhabitants. "We want to protect the refugees from a possible attack by "terrorists", said Vladimir Goryaninov, a member of the Ingush department of the Federal Security Service (FSB).
However, the people in the refugee camps do not believe such explanations. "The soldiers want to take revenge for the hostages in Moscow; their commanders think that fighters hide in refugee camps," said Shamsudin Idigov. "People are afraid of a large sweep and of forced repatriation to Chechnya," he added. (P/T) |
