No militaries' victims found in Grozny District of Chechnya

The law enforcement bodies of Chechnya insist that no human remains were detected in the territory of a former asphalt factory near the village of Goryacheistochnenskaya in the Grozny District of Chechnya. However, according to human rights activists, it does not mean that people were not massacred there.

"Excavation in the place of possible mass burial, indicated by human rights activists near Goryacheistochnenskaya village of the Grozny District, began on Tuesday, July 8. Since then, fragments of a ruined car and decayed remnants clothes were found there, no human remains. Most probably, human rights activists were simply misled by the people who had provided this information," a source at the Republic's MIA (Ministry of Internal Affairs) said in his conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"In October 1999, shooting of a refugees' column was executed in the Grozny District, it's an incontestable fact. Dozens were assassinated there. The fact that in that place (near Goryacheistochnenskaya village) no human remains were found means nothing by itself. Firstly, people could have shown a wrong place, and secondly, the relatives of the casualties could have taken the bodies away for burial several years ago, which frequently was done. This doesn't mean at all that militaries were not killing people, trying then to hide the traces of their crimes," an employee of one of local human rights organizations believes.