Former Bella residents challenge camp shutdown by Federal Migration ServiceRuslan Isayev, North Caucasus – Former residents of the dismantled refugee camp Bella in Ingushetia are planning to challenge the Federal Migration Service’s decision to shut down their tent city. So far more than one hundred refugees have agreed to join the lawsuit.
Those who were forcibly displaced say their rights were violated by the camp’s re-organization, claiming that psychological and physical pressures were exerted on them during their relocation to a new site.
Camp Bella was shut down by a decree of August 1, 2003 issued by the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Ministry of Interior. According to official documents the decision was made due to “fires, deaths and traumas, and the rise in infectious diseases.”
Although the camp was officially shut down on September 1, refugees remained at the site for two more weeks. However, once electricity, gas and water were shut off they began abandoning the camp.
Some returned to temporary accommodation centers in Chechnya, but most of them moved to the neighboring Satsita camp. And it is this latter group that is planning to go to court with their complaint.
The refugees who moved to Satsita had been promised normal living conditions, but apparently that’s not what they got. “Tents are built dangerously close to each other and have no electricity installed yet. So we laid cables to light the tents ourselves, but the danger of fire remains,” stated the refugees.
“Nor does the school here at Satsita admit any of our children,” they complained.
Following upon the heels of Bella, camp Alina is next in line to be dismantled. And the same scenario that took place in Bella is now being imposed on the Alina residents, including the old carrot-and-stick method.
Those who agree to return to Chechnya will get all the humanitarian aid and food denied them during the past 10 months; and those whose homes were destroyed due to combat operations will be financially compensated. Flyers stating all this are being circulated everywhere in Alina where people congregate.
Meanwhile, the Ingush and Chechen migration authorities are exerting ever more pressure on the refugees. Access to the camp is restricted to all outsiders. “Secret orders from on high” is the explanation given at the police checkpoints.
Those who are persistent are subjected to endless questions, such as why do they want to come here?, whom do they want to visit?, and from where have they come? But the few who do manage to talk their way in must then proceed on foot.
(D/E,T) RELATED ARTICLES:
· Refugees in Ingushetia to sue migration service (PW, Sept 17, 2003)
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