REPORTAGE: Inside Chechnya: Misery, Fear, and Abuse

Source: 
Refugee Reports
Duration: 
Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 19:00
Countries: 
Europe
Europe
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
Human Rights
Initiative Type: 
Other

[In December, Refugee Reports editor Bill Frelick visited Chechnya and Ingushetia, as well as Moscow and Stavropol, to assess conditions for people displaced from the war in Chechnya. This article focuses on his trip to Chechnya's capital, Grozny.]

Approaching Chechnya's capital, Grozny, a first-time visitor is momentarily stunned to see what appear to be American Midwestern-like tornadoes. On the horizon multiple, distinct, black funnels join together at the top to form a thick black horizontal cloud hanging high above an otherwise blue sky. Upon approaching this apparent meteorological anomaly, however, the visitor sees fire at the foot of the funnels; the black "tornadoes" are, in fact, the smoke of uncontrolled oil fires that have been burning for months.

Grozny overwhelms the first-time visitor with impressions. And the most powerful is of destruction – total, utter, destruction. Much of Grozny is razed. Vast areas of the city are reduced to rubble. Blocks on end are completely uninhabitable.

I saw sites that my driver (a resident of Grozny) identified for me as hospitals or government buildings whose former identities as structures were unrecognizable. He took me to the site of his destroyed apartment flat as well. We got out of the car at that spot, and looking in every direction, saw nothing but completely destroyed buildings.

Despite the devastation, people somehow manage to live. The civilian population is stubbornly present. Even in badly damaged, clearly unsafe buildings, I could see signs of habitation. For example, a building could be only partially standing, pockmarked with war damage, without a single pane of glass, and yet have laundry hanging out a window. The day of my visit was unusually mild for December, and people were out and about, shopping at sidewalk stands, which offered mostly food and clothing. There was no evidence of stores in the conventional sense functioning inside buildings.

Civilians are not the only presence felt in Grozny. Russian soldiers maintain a constant presence. There are checkpoints at every turn. Closer examination of street corners reveals machine gun nests, tanks, and bunkers.

Driving throughout the city, I saw few glass windows. Nor, however, did I see plastic sheeting, a sign of emergency humanitarian aid. In fact, I saw no evidence of reconstruction, even temporary, of damaged housing. For security reasons, however, I was not able to visit residents of Grozny in their living spaces. But, I was told, electricity has not been restored to the city and potable water and sewage systems are lacking. Some people said that oil from the damaged oil wells around the city has seeped into the water table. It seems that some natural gas lines in the city are working, although I also saw pipes along city streets that were emitting fire.

Despite the food for sale in sidewalk stands in Grozny, it was obvious that no food or anything else was being produced in the city. Clearly, any food available in Grozny – whether in the market or as humanitarian aid – must come from outside.

Getting there was anything but easy. I counted 15 checkpoints on the main road from Ingushetia to the Grozny city limits. Driving from Ingushetia to Grozny, we passed truck convoys with the logos of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) carrying aid. We rarely saw them moving, however. Mostly, they sat still, waiting at checkpoints. I noted checkpoints along stretches of road uninterrupted by intersections, indicating no security rationale for checkpoints when no new traffic could enter the road. NGO personnel said that the main incentive for these checkpoints, aside from harassment, was to collect bribes.

Aside from trucks carrying humanitarian aid, I observed very few cars or buses carrying people into Grozny. I observed far more people traveling in the direction of Ingushetia. (Generally, however, the Ingushetia Interior Ministry reports that roughly 2,000 people a day cross in each direction between Ingushetia and Grozny, about equal numbers in both directions.) It did appear to me that Russian military checkpoints were checking incoming traffic more carefully and strictly than outgoing traffic.

Some of the displaced people I interviewed in Ingushetia cited the lack of food in Grozny as a reason for not returning, although lack of personal security and uninhabitable homes also topped the list. Russian security and military forces brutally closed down Grozny's central market on November 26, 2000. I interviewed one eyewitness to the "mop-up operation" at the market, a middle-aged man in the Karabulak tent camp in Ingushetia. He said, "I was there in the central market of Grozny when the 71st regiment came into the market and evacuated everyone. The troops arrested about 150 people, including my brother, Alaskhanov Dzhabrail. He was born in 1957. My brother was just in the market buying food for his family. He worked as a cabinetmaker. Please see if you can find out what happened to him."

When driving through the many rubble-filled lots in Grozny, the driver identified one as Hospital Number Two. We visited a functioning hospital, Hospital Number Nine. The buildings in the surrounding area were completely destroyed, and the hospital itself was pockmarked with war damage. Areas of the hospital courtyard were still off limits for fear of unexploded ordnance or landmines. I spoke briefly with the hospital's head surgeon. He said that most of the patients arrive in urgent need "hanging by a thread" and often need to be operated on immediately. "If they are not operated on, they die," he said. He said that he sees a lot of hepatitis A cases, as well as drug abuse, including heroin. Given the critical shortages of medicines, it was ironic to hear him say, "Drugs are everywhere."

The surgeon said, "We are still getting people wounded by gun fire. We see everyone – police, warriors, federal troops. After we operate on them, they are removed from the hospital, of course." He estimated that the hospital is currently receiving 20 to 30 shooting and landmine injuries per week, and that war-related injuries have increased in the past two months. During the 24-hour period before my visit to Grozny, the Moscow Times reported the killing of nine Russian soldiers and 18 wounded in rebel attacks in and around Grozny.

As we left Hospital Number Nine, a loud explosion caused our armed guards to go into instinctive crouch positions, looking for snipers. As we were leaving, a woman grimacing in pain was being brought in on foot.

Ongoing Insecurity, Human Rights Violations in Chechnya

As compelling as the needs for basic shelter, food, and water are, the most basic need appears to be security. Displaced people in Ingushetia consistently cited fear as the principal reason for not returning. A woman dressed in black (a sign of mourning) at the Danish Refugee Council's Information Center in Ingushetia's capital, Nazran, gave the following account:

"I am about to cry. I came here yesterday from Groznensky District [the district within which the city of Grozny lies]. I left my two children behind. The oldest is a 14-year-old daughter, a school student. She has no documents. [Children don't usually receive internal passports until they reach the age of 14. For children in Groznensky District, no functioning bureaucracy survives that is able to issue identification/travel documents.] I shouldn't have left her there, but I couldn't bring her here. We live in a settlement called Kulari on the way between Grozny and Nazran. Right across the river is another settlement, Yermolovka. The day before yesterday, there was shelling and shooting. Yermolovka is occupied by the military troops. They shoot and kill innocent people. The children are harassed.

I came here to get humanitarian aid. I can't work. I have no job. I can't bend my knee. My husband was killed during the shelling and bombing. My pension is not given regularly. My nerves are bad. Before now, we found food, but not now.

I cannot stay here [Nazran]. I only came here to get assistance. This is the first time in my life that I have come to Ingushetia. The people are quite kind here. I am afraid for my children. If they were distributing aid today, I would go back today. I would like humanitarian aid to come to the settlement where I live. I hope to stay in Chechnya. I want to stay there. We have property there.

I had no problem getting here. Women have no difficulties, only men. I took a bus. There is no problem for women on the bus."

A man living in private accommodations in Nazran told of his fruitless search to find his missing nephew who disappeared three weeks ago. His account speaks to the ongoing problem of disappearances, particularly of young men:

"Three weeks ago, my 14-year-old nephew, Muslim Magamadov, and two other boys were sitting outside in Grozny playing the guitar. They were taken. No one knows where. I made efforts to find them. I went to Gudermes to the office of the head of the [Russian-appointed] Chechen administration. I personally asked for them with the Federal Security Service. It was probably useless to report.

We have no hope. Everywhere, people get detained and disappear. In most cases, they are not found. That is why we lose hope. Many of my relatives have disappeared, even the elderly. It is useless even to start enumerating the names. I could go on and on until the morning. One of our relatives we did find. When we went back to see the condition of our house, we found his charred body in a neighboring house."

A group of women in the Karabulak tent camp told of the dangers that befall young women. One of the women, too traumatized to speak for herself, nodded her head to confirm the story the others related about her daughter. Her daughter, Kumgayeva Hede, 18 years old, was raped and killed by Russian soldiers on March 26, 2000, they said. This happened in Urus Marten, which had been under siege for two months. During that time, no one could enter or leave, even though the women said that no military (i.e., rebel) action had taken place since December 1999.

March 26, 2000 was the day of Russian presidential elections that brought Vladimir Putin to power. On that day, the Russian soldiers were especially abusive. She said that the soldiers were drunk and beating people, especially young people. By that time, the Chechen men were gone, "beaten or killed," the women said. Soldiers came into the Hede house at about 1:00 am. Six soldiers came, including Colonel Yuri Budanov (although the women were not sure of the first name, they said it was the 160th regiment, which he commanded, and that he was in the group of six that entered the house). The soldiers accused the girl of being a sniper, and tortured her by burning her with cigarettes, before raping and killing her. They said that the colonel was later awarded a medal for his work in Chechnya.

Humanitarian Assistance, Reconstruction Aid in Grozny

At the time of the Refugee Reports visit, UN agencies were not operating directly in Chechnya for security reasons. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN's World Food Program were, however, providing humanitarian assistance for NGOs to deliver. At the time, the UN's principal NGO implementing partners inside Chechnya were the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), a Czech NGO – People in Need Foundation (PINF), and the Polish Humanitarian Organization (PHO). Other NGOs, including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Action Contre la Faim (ACF), provided humanitarian assistance in Chechnya, but not through the UN system. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also provides assistance in Chechnya.

We stopped at the DRC's food distribution station in Grozny's Staropromyslovski District and were able to observe direct delivery of humanitarian assistance. DRC uses its registration lists to determine eligibility. Beneficiaries sign their names and DRC staff check them off the list as people receive their rations of wheat flour, sugar, salt, and vegetable oil. When we arrived, a large crowd had gathered on the street outside. A number of elderly women accosted a DRC representative to complain that they were not receiving humanitarian assistance. The DRC has established eligibility criteria, which the DRC representative tried to explain to the angry crowd.

When it began distributing humanitarian aid in Grozny, DRC initially operated on the legitimate assumption that anyone living there should be eligible for humanitarian assistance. Since that time, however, eligibility criteria for humanitarian assistance have narrowed to identified vulnerable groups. However, the eligibility criteria are poorly understood, which has caused many to be suspicious of DRC, and to think they are wrongly being denied aid.

Adding to this tension, DRC took responsibility for a registration exercise that essentially served as a census of the entire population in Chechnya and of displaced Chechens in Ingushetia. DRC encouraged people to register, in part, by telling them that people who were not registered would not be able to receive humanitarian assistance. Many people, however, believed that everyone who registered would be eligible, which has not proven to be the case.

At the time of the Refugee Reports visit, the small Czech NGO, PINF, was using the DRC registration system to distribute food aid to about 42,000 vulnerable people, including internally displaced persons, in three districts of Grozny: Leninski, Oktyabriski, and Zavodskoy. PINF renewed its operations in Chechnya (it had worked in the region during the first war) in January 2000. At that time, PINF's local director said, there was no humanitarian assistance at all in Grozny. PINF began working with EMERCOM, the Russian government's humanitarian response arm, which operates in a paramilitary fashion. Eventually, PINF became an implementing partner for WFP and UNHCR. In addition to food distribution, PINF has conducted what its director calls "hit and run convoys" to provide limited quantities of blue plastic sheeting and kitchen sets, nonfood items supplied by UNHCR. It has also worked to rehabilitate a school and would like to reconstruct other public buildings.

Despite these efforts, reconstruction has been painfully slow. According to the State Committee for Refugees and Displaced Persons, 129,728 households were destroyed by the war. Despite efforts spearheaded by UNHCR to create "one warm, dry room" in houses that were not severely damaged, and could be partially winterized, there simply was not discernible evidence of any reconstruction in Grozny in our drive-by assessment of the city. The sole exception was one remarkably lavish building that appeared newly constructed in the midst of chaos, the headquarters of the Energy Ministry.

The Moscow-appointed official head of the pro-Russian Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, himself complains about the lack of Russian reconstruction aid. "Leaders need moral and financial support to achieve something," he told Agence France Presse on December 18, 2000, "but we have not received one ruble for reconstruction or compensation for the war and people are disillusioned."

Kidnapping: Humanitarian Aid Suspended

On January 9, unknown kidnappers on the road near Starye Atagi in central Chechnya apprehended Kenny Gluck, the local director of MSF, and held him for almost one month. (He was freed on February 4.) Gluck, an American, is a well-known humanitarian worker in the region, a veteran of the first Chechen war, who had returned to run the MSF operation, which was focused on repairing hospitals and helping to provide basic health care inside Chechnya.

After Gluck's kidnapping, all international humanitarian agencies suspended their operations inside Chechnya. Humanitarian assistance inside Chechnya remained on hold until mid-February. (See update, page 13.)

I met with Gluck during my visit. He reported an increase in war related casualties in the last two months, including artillery and shooting victims, as well as mine-related injuries. MSF had managed some improvements in Hospital Number Nine, including providing a water filtration system, some gas stoves for the maternity and surgical units, and plastic sheeting. But, he said, "We can put a roof back on a hospital, but we can't stop it from being bombed again." (February 2001)

SOURCE: Refugee Reports, Vol. 22, No 2 (February 2001)