A photo of a Chechen refugee family

GENEVA, August 16 (IslamOnline.net) – The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees slammed Friday, August 15, Ingush authorities for forcing Chechen refugees to return to their war-ravaged country and for moving them to dilapidated buildings in Ingushetia.

"UNHCR strongly objects to the aggressive and unacceptable manner in which IDPs (short for internally displaced peoples) from the camp were treated," said the refugee agency's spokesman, Kris Janowski, in reference to Ingushetia's Askanovskie Garazhi temporary settlement.

On Sunday, August 10, Ingush policemen forced some 200 IDPs from Chechnya to move from Askanovskie Garazhi.

The refugees were put on trucks and moved back to Bella camp, where they had been living for three years, and prevented from returning to their old accommodation and are currently placed in poor conditions in decrepit buildings, the U.N. refugee agency said.

Janowski said the "voluntary return" for Chechen refugees only exists on the papers of the Ingush authorities, noting that displaced people must receive accurate information on conditions for return, as well as a genuine alternative in Ingushetia if they choose to stay.

"The recent evictions challenge the validity of official statements that all IDPs in Ingushetia may stay in Ingushetia until they wish to return in full safety and dignity, and indicates that these statements may be without political commitment," he stressed.

The federal and local authorities in Ingushetia have repeatedly assured UNHCR that any returns to Chechnya will be voluntary.

Many of the estimated 800,000 displaced Chechens in Ingushetia – 12,000 of whom live in five tented camps – have expressed fears about returning to Chechnya because of insecurity there.

The U.N. refugee agency and other international humanitarian organizations have offered to help authorities develop alternative shelters, but the offer has not yet been accepted.

The BBC News Online said that the UNHCR's statements came few days after the pro-Moscow administration in Chechnya said it would bring home 10,000 refugees from Ingushetia.

Russia has vowed to dismantle all five tent camps - home to around 12,000 of the 80,000 displaced Chechens in the republic - before presidential elections in Chechnya on 5 October.

On the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia, hundreds of refugees from the Iman camp protested Thursday, September 12, against pressure from Russian authorities to force them back to the war-torn republic against their will.

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.

For their part, Russian human rights groups denounced on Tuesday, January 21, the "war against Chechen refugees" in Ingushetia following a wave of sweeps they said were intended to force the refugees to return to their homeland against their will.

The interventions by Russian armed forces in the camps in Ingushetia, just across the border from Chechnya "have become increasingly frequent, and are on almost the same scale as those in Chechnya itself, " asserted Svetlana Gannushkina, of the Memorial human rights group.

"The Chechen conflict is broadening. They’re waging a virtual war against the refugees in Ingushetia," said Lidia Grafova, director of the Migration human rights group and also a member of a government commission on migrations.