MOSCOW, Oct 26 (AFP) - Several thousand refugees from Chechnya are stranded on the republic's border with neighboring Ingushetia, closed since Saturday by Moscow, Ingush presidency spokesman Kureyich Buzurtanov said Tuesday.
"Not a single car or person has been able to cross the frontier since Saturday," Buzurtanov told AFP in a telephone interview from the regional capital Nazran.
"The situation is very difficult: several families have become separated, he added.
Moscow sealed the border, used as an escape route by almost 170,000 Chechens to flee the deadly violence in their republic for the past seven weeks, claiming "it was being infiltrated by "terrorists."
Ingush president Ruslan Aushev denounced the Russian move as an infringement of human rights.
On Monday, the Russian authorities promised that four crossing-points would be opened "soon."
But Aushev's spokesman said: "Everyone is waiting for this but this depends on the federal military authorities."
Russia's intelligence service the FSB -- formerly the KGB -- justified the border closure Sunday by saying Chechen warlords Shamil Basayev and Khattab had ordered terrorist attacks against targets inside Russia, including Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Russian human rights groups meanwhile called Tuesday on regions of the Russian federation to take in some of the 187,000 Chechen refugees living in dire conditions in Ingushetia.
"Members of the Russian federation should come forward to take responsibility for these people," said Svetlana Ganushkina of the Memorial Association -- Russia's oldest human rights group.
"At least 8,000 refugees are living in inhumane conditions in the cars and buses which brought them from Chechnya. There is a terrible shortage of medicine. There have already been cases of dysentery and tuberculosis, and some babies have already died," said Memorial representatives.
Aushev spokesman Kureish Buzurtanov told AFP that there were some 20,000 refugees in seven camps living in tents and commandeered railway carriages. Others have been taken in by Ingush families.
"Some families have taken in up to 400 refugees. Humanitarian assistance from the federal government does meet even two percent of requirements," said the Memorial Association.
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