Chechen refugees: Situation in Ingushetia worsens markedly

Ruslan Isayev, North Caucasus - Over the past month the situation in Ingushetia has gotten worse. There has been a sharp increase in illegal arrests of people, refugees in particular. Ingush law enforcement bodies carry out operations almost every day to detain offenders who, quite often, show armed resistance.

In the Pliyevo village, for example, an operation was organized to search for the unknown offender who had shot dead an Ingush policemen next to his house. A number of local citizens as well as refugees were arrested in order to check their possible participation in the crime and their affiliation with Chechen resistance fighters. Firearms were seized in several houses.

In the Altiyevo village near Nazran, armed men abducted two Chechen refugees working on a private construction project. Three cars without a license plate came to the construction site and masked men jumped off. They made four workers get into the cars, threatening them with guns. On their departure they dropped two workers of Ingush nationality. So far the Ingush law enforcement bodies have not been able to trace the kidnappers. However, one version is that the kidnap was carried out by the forces of the Moscow-backed Chechen bodies.

As for refugee camps, the situation has also worsened. Members of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), coming from other Russian regions, are present in every camp. Their task is to prevent any foreign journalists from entering the camps. When journalists arrive they are asked to leave the camp in accordance with some invisible order which allegedly regulates the contact between refugees and journalists.