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Armed incident in Katyr-Yurt was continuation of old quarrel

By Ruslan Isayev

CHECHNYA - One person was killed and seven wounded, two of them seriously, in the armed incident that took place between residents of Katyr-Yurt in Chechnya’s Achhoi-Martanovsky district on Sunday. The brawl, which developed into a shootout, also involved two law enforcement officers. The district prosecutor’s office is investigating the details of what happened, and the reasons for the tragedy are being established.

For several years now, residents of the village of Katyr-Yurt have been witnesses of the blood enmity that exists between two families. The enmity periodically subsides, but then reignites with new vigour, claiming yet more victims on both sides of the conflict. To date, three people have lost their lives in a tragic confrontation which began five years ago because of an absurd remark made by one of the villagers in the yard of a neighbour.

During a zikr [ritual prayer] which was performed by local murids [Sufi disciples] at the invitation of the village’s Germikhanov family, one of the murids, a man named Malsagov, tripped on a nail that was sticking out of the floor and tore his socks. In his anger at the nail he proclaimed a curse on it, which translated from Chechen means "may your master die." The Germikhanovs took this as a personal insult. A quarrel at once ensued, and it soon turned into a large-scale brawl. The warring parties were eventually separated, but only after two people had been killed. Neither the Germikhanovs nor the Malsagovs were satisfied with this outcome.The local elders, their resources exhausted, brought in respected negotiators to resolve the dispute between the blood enemies, but the matter was merely put on ice for a while, and Sunday’s tragedy now means that it has flared up again. And no one can say how it may end, or indeed if it will ever end.

In Chechnya it is not uncommon for blood feuds to last for decades or even longer. In the Achkhoi-Martanovsky district the enmity between the Khaikharo and Myalkhi teips [clans], which began ten years ago, has also not yet been resolved. To date, more than fifteen people have lost their lives on both sides of that conflict. The most recent incident occurred in Ingushetia this summer when some Myalkhi killed a Khaikharo, an ordinary labourer who worked with his family out on the fields, growing tomatoes and cucumbers. What caused the outbreak of war between these supposedly kindred teips was also a banal domestic quarrel.

There is also a feud between two families in the settlement of Sernovodskaya in Chechnya's Sunzhensky district. It has also claimed the lives of several people. It began when a man shot one of his neighbour’s dogs after it had annoyed him. The neighbour killed him in revenge, and the conflict is not considered to be over.

Although blood feuds have been a restraining factor in the Chechen society in the relations of Chechens with one another, it may one day present that same society with a choice: either to leave to the State the right to punish the offender, or revert to the Middle Ages.

(Translation by DM)

(D/T)

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