Dozens killed, dozens kidnapped in Chechnya this year, Memorial states
By Ruslan Isayev
NAZRAN, Ingushetia – 54 people have been killed in the monitored part of Chechnya since the beginning of 2005. Of these, 27 were civilians, 12 were law enforcement officials, 10 were members of resistance units, and 5 were persons unknown. This data has been published by the Russian human rights center “Memorial”.
Altogether since mid-2000, 3088 people have been killed. The human rights workers are at pains to point out that this data comes from the monitoring of 25-30 percent of the republic’s territory, and so the overall figures will be higher.
In 2005 the number of people abducted has exceeded those who were killed. Thus, over this same period of the current year the human rights workers have recorded 74 cases of abduction. Of these people, 34 were released or ransomed, 2 were found dead, while so far there is no news of 36 others, and 2 cases are under investigation.
Also, since 2002, 1553 cases of abduction have been recorded. Of these people, 485 were ransomed or freed, 159 were found dead, 889 disappeared, and 10 cases are under investigation.
Commenting on these figures, Usam Baysayev, a worker at the Nazran office of “Memorial”, said that the overall figures are far higher.
“The fact is that we chiefly record the cases that are well known. There are regions of Chechnya where monitoring is not carried out. These are the mountain districts and the northern regions. So it can be said with certainty that all these figures are considerably higher than the ones we have,” Baysayev noted.
Translated by David McDuff.
(MD/T)
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