Refugees in Ingushetia ordered to remove tent add-ons

Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus -- Ingushetia's Immigration Office decreed that as of June 1, Chechen refugees residing in Ingush tent camps must remove all the additions they built to their tents.

This decision was made at a regular session of the federal and republic's immigration services with heads of the camps. The reasons given were to "prevent fires, injuries and infectious diseases."

Refugees regard this decision negatively since, to them, these add-ons serve as a buffer against inclement weather. "Over the past four years we built the extensions in order not to enter the tent directly from the outside where it is freezing in the winter and boiling hot in the summer," said Adam Doshukayev of the Sputnik camp. "The extensions have been there all these years so I don't understand why the sudden decision to take them down now," he added.

Ruslan Zhadayev, human rights defender of the Chechen National Salvation Committee, believes that this is simply a continuation of the "voluntary-coercive" transfer of refugees from Ingushetia to Chechnya. "If it wasn't the extensions, then they'd make up something else," he stated.

The immigration authorities, however, deny any political implications. "These measures were necessary to ensure the safety of our temporarily displaced persons," stressed Alikhan Parov, head of the Sunzhenski district's immigration department.