Ingushetia must remain safe haven for displaced Chechens

Amnesty International welcomes the recent announcement that the final group of 1,000 Chechen internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Bella camp in Ingushetia have been voluntarily relocated to a neighbouring IDP camp. However, Amnesty International is still concerned that the Russian authorities have not given sufficient guarantees that the principle of voluntary return as well as the integrity and dignity of the IDPs will be respected.

According to reports, on 30 September the remaining IDPs from Bella camp were resettled in the Satsita camp where UNHCR is reported to have provided 166 tents for the IDPs, as well as guarantees that a group of IDPs from the Bella camp that were not registered with the Federal Migration Service would nevertheless be granted registration and accommodation in the Satsita camp.

Prior to the closure of the Bella IDP camp, attempts by the Russian authorities to pressure the remaining IDPs living in tent camps in Ingushetia ? who number approximately 12,000 out of the total 80,000 IDPs - were reported to have intensified. A variety of tactics such as intimidation, harassment, threats of deregistration from official camp lists of IDPs and the curtailment of vital services such as water, electricity and gas supplies were reportedly utilised by the authorities to compel the IDPs to return. Furthermore, humanitarian and human rights agencies claimed that they were sometimes being denied access to the camps.

The Bella camp had been the focus of especially concerted pressure aimed at forcing its closure which prompted a group of IDPs to declare a hunger-strike in protest at cuts in vital services. On 22 September, when IDPs tried to prevent local gas workers from cutting off the gas supply to the Bella camp, two women were reportedly struck repeatedly with the butts of automatic rifles and, as a result, required hospital treatment.

In addition, reports that military raids - which during the first three years of the current conflict mainly took place on the territory of the Chechen Republic - have spread to neighbouring Ingushetia are a further cause for concern. During these raids federal forces - as well as armed troops reportedly under the command of Chechen presidential candidate and previous acting head of administration Akhmad Kadyrov - are alleged to have targeted civilian settlements as well as IDP camps and committed serious human rights violations.

Background

In mid-August, 200 IDPs from Bella Camp, one of the five remaining tent camps in Ingushetia, were reported to have been subjected to intense pressure by the Ingush authorities. First they were forced out of the camp to a temporary settlement, and a few days later they were sent back to the camp to live in worse conditions than previously. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees described the manner in which they were treated as "aggressive and unacceptable". The population of Bella Camp has dropped dramatically in recent months, which could be an indication of a deliberate effort by the authorities to close yet another tent camp, as was the case with Aki Yurt camp in December 2002.

In August 2003 the acting head of the Chechen administration, Anatoly Popov, stated that all tent camps would be dismantled by 1 October, four days prior to the planned presidential elections in the republic. Such statements spread fear among the IDP population, the vast majority of which list security concerns as the main reason for not wanting to return and who remain unconvinced by repeated promises from the authorities that no one will be forced back to the Chechen Republic.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has on several occasions expressed concern that the principle of voluntary return is not being respected and has lodged official complaints with the Russian authorities over its staff being denied access to Bella camp. Later, a UNHCR representative was granted access to the camp, although other aid agencies continue to be denied.