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Consistent Tale Of Russian Abuse In Chechnya: U.N. Rights Chief
SPUTNIK REFUGEE CAMP, Russia, April (AFP) - Chechen civilians told a consistent tale of human rights abuses by Russian troops in the breakaway republic, U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson said during a visit here Saturday.
Robinson, the U.N. human rights commissioner, expressed concern about the plight of the tens of thousands of people jammed into tents and trains in Ingushetia, an impoverished Russian republic which borders Chechnya. Some 220,000 refugees have flooded into the republic since Russia launched its ground campaign in Chechnya on October 1 last year.
"I was certainly very dismayed by the depth of suffering, pain, resentment and frustration that I met in the camp here in Ingushetia," she said. "It's clear that a number of them have suffered deep trauma," said Robinson, who was a leading lawyer in her native Ireland before becoming that country's first woman president.
The refugees claimed that the Kontraktniki, volunteers hired by the Russian armed forces to fight in Chechnya alongside regular army troops, had been "particularly vicious," she said. "But on the whole there were consistent reports of abuses, consistent allegations, and therefore very deep resentment."
Robinson said her trip was an important show of international solidarity and was an attempt to "bring home the importance of peace being re-established in the region."
With the spring thaw well underway Robinson, the most senior Western official to visit the troubled Caucasus region to date, warned that the medical situation in the camps could deteriorate sharply in the summer.
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