MOSCOW, November 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The bodies of the 41 Chechen fighters who stormed a Moscow theater last month in what they said was a retaliation for Russia’s deadly war against the Chechen people, remain unburied, police officials said Wednesday, November 27, as quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency.

The bodies of 22 men and 19 women had been left in Moscow morgues and it remained unclear if the bodies would be sent to Chechnya or buried near Moscow, given the vehement opposition of some Russian officials to the idea of delivering the bodies to their relatives in Chechnya, as custom dictates, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The bodies of the 41 Chechen fighters "should be buried in a nameless cemetery in an unmarked grave. Otherwise rebel leaders will turn their funeral into a glorifying show," said Anatoly Kulikov, chief of Russian parliament's anti-terrorism committee.

The 41 Chechen fighters were killed by Russian special forces who ended the hostage-taking crisis by assaulting the theater October 26 and pumping a fatal gas in the auditorium, killing at least 129 Russian hostages in the process.

Russian officials who refuse to return the Chechens’ bodies to their kin for burial say the bodies are kept in morgues for identification purposes, said AFP.

On another front, the United Nations expressed alarm Wednesday at the planned closure next weekend of a refugee camp in southern Russia which houses more than 1,000 refugees from the war in Chechnya.

Russian authorities have said they will close the camp, at Aki Yurt, in Ingushetia - a republic bordering on Chechnya - Sunday, December 1.

While the refugees might wish to return to Chechnya, "they are reluctant to do so at this point because of insecurity and the lack of shelter, basic services and economic opportunities," U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Kenzo Oshima said.

"Returns can only be considered voluntary if no risk exists to returnees' life, safety, liberty or health," he said in a statement expressing "alarm" at the imminent closure of Aki Yurt.

In Moscow Monday, Ingush deputy Prime Minister Magomet Markhiyev said no refugee would be forced to go back to Chechnya.

"All in all, we have received statements by 10,000 people wishing to leave the camps," Markhiyev said, adding that they would be accommodated in private houses.

A total of 110,000 people are estimated to have fled to Ingushetia since the beginning of the second Chechen war three years ago, and 27,000 of them are believed to be in camps. The others are living in rented rooms in private homes or disused factories.