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A Chechen family prepares to leave the refugee camp of Aki-Yurt
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AKI
YURT, Russia, December 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Chechen
refugees living in two camps in neighboring Ingushetia have been told
that the camps will be closed and they must return home.
A
Chechen activist, quoted by British daily The Independent, said
that Russian police have, since December 2, started forcing nearly all
the Chechen refugees living in the Ingush camp of Aki Yurt to flee, days
after Russia promised it would not compel them to return to their
war-ravaged homeland.
According
to Agence France-Presse (AFP), police have forbidden journalists and
humanitarian organizations from entering the Aki Yurt camp, which lies
in the Russian republic of Ingushetia on the border with Chechnya.
On
December 2, Chechen refugee Rosa Gaytukayeva told AFP that only around
20 of the camp’s 200 tents remained standing and most of its 2,700
refugees had been forced out by police since Russia began closing the
camp.
“If
people refuse to leave, the tents - which were recently replaced - are
destroyed,” she said.
“They’re
telling us we can either return to Grozny where there are no homes, or
we can go stay at private homes in Ingushetia” where they would have
to pay rent, she said.
Russian
authorities have repeatedly claimed that any returns to Chechnya would
be “voluntary.”
Immigration
officers and officials from the Chechen capital, Grozny, gave the last
evacuation warning when they visited the camps Monday, December 9, said
Ruslan Badalov, from the Chechen Committee for National Salvation.
At
least 8,000 people live in the two camps, which will be closed by 20
December, according to The Independent.
The
warning appeared to be part of a campaign by Russia to return refugees
from eight years of war in Chechnya to the region, which is still
plagued by violence.
The
campaign has been criticized by aid organizations and human rights
groups. Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Russia said he feared refugees
were being coerced into returning when it was unsafe to do so.
However,
the United States said Friday it had received assurances from Russia
that the refugees would not be forcibly returned.
In
Moscow, the Kremlin office responsible for relations with Chechnya
refused to comment on the witness testimony when contacted by AFP.
“There
has been no statement on Yaki Yurt and there will be none today -
perhaps tomorrow, but that is not certain either,” a secretary for the
Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said.
Ingushetia’s
camps have been home to around 20,000 Chechen refugees, while the total
number of refugees who have fled the conflict-torn republic to
Ingushetia is estimated at around 110,000, with the majority renting
rooms in private homes or disused factories.
“The
refugees are outraged that the authorities are forcing them to leave and
proposing nothing in exchange,” Gaytukayeva said.
Russian
authorities have repeatedly said that they want to close Aki Yurt and
other camps in Ingushetia by year’s end, as part of a campaign seen as
a bid to impress on the world that the situation in Chechnya is under
control.
“The
war has brought us to these tent camps, but now the authorities want to
show the whole world that Chechen refugees have returned to their calm
and stable republic,” said Umidat Sagayeva, a refugee at Karabulak
camp.
She
said the camp’s gas and electricity had been cut off overnight Monday
as temperatures dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees
Fahrenheit). “One more time, they have let us know that our presence
in Ingushetia is undesirable and that we have to go back to Chechnya,”
Sagayeva said.
The
camps are the most visible evidence of the war that has raged in
Chechnya since October 1999, and access to them is strictly controlled.
“We
have orders not to let anyone in, particularly journalists and
humanitarian organizations,” said police officer Ruslan Kodzoyev, as
U.N. and Red Cross representatives tried unsuccessfully to get into the
camp.
The
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had urged Russia to put off
the decision to close Aki Yurt until decent living quarters for those
housed there were found.
“Despite
repeated commitments by Russian authorities that all repatriations to
Chechnya will be voluntary, we continue to receive alarming reports that
immigration officials have been putting pressure on camp residents to
return to Chechnya,” the UNHCR said last week.
Ruslan
Badalov, head of Chechnya’s National Salvation Committee, accused
Russian officials of “blackmailing hopeless refugees and threatening
them with forced deportation.”
“The
Russian authorities are condemning tens of thousands of Chechen refugees
to suffering,” he said. “This criminal policy can cause a human
catastrophe.”
In
Kazakhstan, Chechen refugees live in legal limbo and complain that their
existence has become even more uncertain since a hostage taking by
Chechen rebels at a Moscow theatre in October.
“After
the Moscow events, they started to put pressure on us here. Over the
last few weeks the authorities have stopped giving us registration
papers and tell us to go home, but we face genocide in Chechnya,” Isa,
a Chechen refugee, aged 35, told AFP.
At
least 12,000 Chechens have fled the brutality of war to seek sanctuary
in Kazakhstan since the first conflict in Chechnya broke out in 1994.
Isa
left the Chechen town of Urus Martan a year ago when his children showed
signs of being traumatized by the fighting.
“They
used to bomb us at night. My three-year-old daughter was so scared that
she stopped walking. Chechnya is no place at the moment for a family
with children,” the father of four said.
Kazakhstan
has traditionally been considered a second homeland for Chechens who
were deported en masse by Stalin to the ex-Soviet republic in 1944, amid
false accusations that they had collaborated with Nazi occupying forces.
After
more than a decade in exile, the Chechens were permitted to return to
their homeland in southern Russia, although some remained behind and an
estimated 33,000 ethnic Chechens are now citizens of Kazakhstan.
“Our
fathers said that the Kazakhs gave them food and clothes after they were
deported, so we consider it as a second homeland,” said Isa, who has
distant cousins in Almaty.
Chechen
representatives in Almaty expect the number of refugees there to grow
after some 300 Chechens living as refugees in neighboring Ingushetia
asked to be allowed to live in Kazakhstan.
But
representatives warn that life is not easy in Kazakhstan, where refugees
rely on family connections, savings or work illegally in order to
survive as the authorities refuse to award them refugee status.
To
add salt to injury, police in the Caucasian republic of Georgia arrested
dozens of exiled Chechens Saturday, December 7, in an unprecedented
crackdown on the community in the capital Tbilisi following a deadly
shootout.
Eighty
people were held for identity checks and 12 remained in detention on
Saturday afternoon, said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry of
Georgia, which borders Chechnya.
Georgian
Interior Minister Koba Narchemashvili warned on television Saturday
evening such crackdowns would be a regular feature in future “as long
criminality in the country requires it. We still have a lot of work to
do,” he said.
“We
must apply to several countries to establish whether any of those
identified today are wanted persons, criminals or terrorists.”
However,
the interior ministry spokesman denied Chechens were being targeted in
Saturday’s operation. “Georgia is tightening up on passport
checks,” the ministry spokesman told reporters. “This action is not
aimed at the Chechen Diaspora but is part of the fight against crime.”
But
witnesses said most of those rounded up to be photographed and
fingerprinted were Chechens, who number about 700 in Tbilisi, although
only 150 are officially registered.
Among
those taken in by police was the main representative of the Chechen
exile community, Hizri Aldamov, later hospitalized after suffering a
heart attack, Georgian television said.
The
raids were the first on such a scale against Chechens in Georgia, most
of whom have fled across the border since Russian troops poured back
into Chechnya in October 1999 to crush a separatist insurgency.
“The
Georgian police were acting under Russian pressure. We’re used to
being harassed,” said 60-year-old Chechen Ibrahim Yakhayev.
