18 January 2013, 19:00
In 2012, 14 persons fell victim to the armed conflict in North Ossetia
In 2012, North Ossetia had at least 14 victims of the armed conflict ongoing in Northern Caucasus; of them, at least seven persons were killed and seven more persons were wounded. The total number of victims, as compared with the data of 2011, remained the same; however, the death toll went up. These are the results of the calculations made by the "Caucasian Knot" based on the data received from its own correspondents and on information from other open sources.
More than half of the victims of the conflict in 2012 in North Ossetia are employees of law-enforcement bodies: one was killed and seven others were wounded. Also, at least two civilians and four persons treated as militants were killed.
Explosions and terror acts
In 2012, in North Ossetia, one terror act was committed by a suicide bomber.
An explosion at the check post near the village of Chermen, Prigorodny District on the border with Ingushetia, occurred at night on October 23. In the course of inspection of a passenger car, which had drove to the post from the side of Nazran, its driver triggered a bomb. As a result of the blast, apart from the suicide bomber himself, a policeman was killed on the spot; his four colleagues were wounded. The power of the bomb triggered at the Chermen post, exceeded 50 kilos of TNT (trotyl) equivalent; the explosion completely destroyed the check post.
In 2011, in North Ossetia, two explosions of non-household character were registered, as a result of which nobody was hurt.
Losses of power agents and the underground
In 2012, in North Ossetia, the losses among the members of the armed underground made four persons; all of them were killed.
11 January, according to information of law-enforcement bodies of Ingushetia, as a result of a special operation in Chermen, Ruslan Kodzoev, a supposed member of the armed underground, who had been searched, was killed. Two more militants were killed eight months later, on September 11, 2012, in the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia, in the course of counterterrorist operation (CTO) on the board with Ingushetia. The fourth casualty was the terrorist-suicide bomber, who triggered an explosive device at the check post "Chermen" at night on October 23.
The "Caucasian Knot" is here emphasizing that the statistics on members of the armed underground accounts for those, who have been announced as such by employees of law-enforcement bodies.
From among employees of power bodies, in 2012, in North Ossetia, at least one person was killed and seven more were wounded in terror acts and armed clashes.
Thus, two policemen were wounded as a result of shooting in the village of Zmeiskaya on January 10, another one - in the course of an armed clash within a special operation in the Prigorodny District on September 11. Most of the power agents lost in 2012 in the course of the conflict were casualties of the terror act on the border with Ingushetia on October 23: then, one policeman was lost and four other policemen were wounded.
In 2011, in North Ossetia, one member of the armed underground was killed; while from among employees of power bodies, as a result of special operations, in total, at least five persons were wounded; there were no casualties.
Thus, in 2012, the number of casualties from among members of the underground, as compared with 2011, went up from one to four persons. The same trend was observed among power agents: the number of wounded persons went up from five persons in 2011 to seven in 2012; also in 2012 the law-enforcement bodies lost one murdered employee, while in 2011 there were no casualties among power agents.
Civilian victims
In 2012, in North Ossetia, civilians also suffered from the armed conflict. At least two such cases were reported.
In particular, in the evening on February 27 in Mozdok, Kamil Kazakov, 56, Director General of the Mozdok Experimental Mechanical Factory and the head of the Muslim community of the Mozdok District, was killed. In the evening on December 23, in the outskirt of Vladikavkaz, Ibragim Dudarov, 34, Deputy Mufti of North Ossetia, was shot dead.
In 2011, at least eight civilians fell victim to the conflict in North Ossetia, including five wounded persons and three casualties.
The above statistics is unable to reflect, with a 100-percent precision, the number of victims under each of the categories specified in the report. Not all the data gets into news reports. It is not always possible to verify the truthfulness of the statements made by law-enforcement bodies.
Trends of the year: the number of victims grows on account of power agents and the underground, civilians suffer less
When comparing the total count of victims of the armed conflict in North Ossetia in 2011 (14 persons; of whom four persons were killed and 10 more wounded) with the figures of 2012 (14 victims, including seven casualties and seven wounded persons), we see no essential trends towards improvement or abrupt aggravation of the situation in the republic; however, we note some growth of the count of casualties along with a decrease of the number of those wounded.
Let us note here that the terror act committed in 2012 in North Ossetia indicates some aggravation of the situation in the region; while in 2011 no terror acts were registered. Thus, almost half of the victims - six persons out of 14 - were associated with the October terror act committed by a suicide bomber. This is also the reason of the growth of losses among power agents - five out of eight fell victim to terror acts (one was killed and four were wounded).
At the same time, we should note positive dynamics in the count of victims among civilians: in 2012, there were two such cases compared with eight in 2011. Let us also note that the aggravation of the situation took place mainly in the first and the fourth quarters of 2012, while from March to August 2012 there were no victims of the armed conflict in North Ossetia.
