Judd, right, speaks with Chechen refugees

MOSCOW, September 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Chechen refugees protested Thursday, September 12, in Moscow and southern Russia against pressure from Russian authorities to repatriate them into the war-torn republic against their will.

They said that while Russia was not trying to repatriate them forcibly, it exerted pressure by discontinuing food distribution and cutting gas and electricity in refugee camps, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Some 20 Chechen refugees from a camp north of Moscow and human rights advocates demonstrated in front of the Interior Ministry, holding banners reading “They are starving us to make us come back while artillery shells are flying,” and “Stop the war in Chechnya.”

They said the authorities had denied them food handouts since August 1.

“Refugees are not forced to board buses headed for Chechnya, but they are being pressured,” the head of the Civil Assistance rights group, Yelena Burtina, told AFP.

On the border between Chechnya and the south Russian republic of Ingushetia, hundreds of refugees from the Iman camp staged a similar protest.

They said the Russian immigration agency threatened to close down the camp, which had been set up by international rights groups to help refugees, particularly during the harsh winters.

“An immigration agency official threatened to throw us out this week if we did not leave voluntarily,” said Zulay Vachayeva, a 48-year-old refugee.

The Kremlin aired plans to close all of the refugee camps by the end of the year.

The decision came under intense criticism from human rights groups, including the relief agency Doctors without Borders (MSF).

The return of some 140,000 refugees sheltering in Ingushetia and elsewhere in Russia is a sensitive political issue for Moscow, which repeatedly declared the 35-month Chechen conflict over. However, it still faces daily hit-and-run attacks from independence claiming fighters in the breakaway republic.

Russian troops stormed into Chechnya on October 1, 1999, to put down a separatist insurgency, in what the Kremlin described as an antiterrorist operation.

On September 3, a Council of Europe team led by Britain’s Lord Judd voiced concerns about reports “which are too numerous to ignore” that the refugees who fled to Ingushetia are being pressured to return home.

However, the head of Chechnya’s pro-Russian administration Akhmed Kadyrov denied that the reports were true, saying that he would be “surprised if the delegation could find a single family that had been forced to return.”

Judd said he would investigate allegations that Russian soldiers were shipping refugees back into the war zone against their will.

“We are concerned about human rights and the security situation and the well-being of the Chechen people,” Judd told reporters.

“I want to know if the people who are returning to Chechnya are really doing so voluntarily,” he said.

Some 140,000 Chechens have fled the fighting to neighboring Ingushetia and some 36,000 of them live in makeshift camps along the border between the two republics.

“There are too many reports and too many indications for them not to be taken seriously,” Judd told AFP.

Human rights observers accuse the Russian authorities of forcibly shutting down refugee camps in Ingushetia and the more peaceful northern areas of Chechnya, and shipping people into the heart of the war zone.

“We have been told that the returnees were enticed by promises of financial assistance but that none were forthcoming,” Judd said.

Judd, who makes periodic visits to Chechnya, is due to report his findings to the 44-nation Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, scheduled to convene on September 23.

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