Raid on temporary accommodation center of forced migrants in Grozny - details

In the evening of December 8, 2003 in the Leninsky district of Grozny, officers of one of the Chechen security agencies made an armed attack on the temporary accommodation center of forced migrants which is located 47, Kirov street.

At about 7 p.m., three UAZ and several VAZ-21099 cars stopped by the center. A large group of security agents in masks left the cars and came up the entrance of the building.

The attackers disarmed the guards and beat them.

Then the security agents spread in the center, beating everyone they met without making difference who it was: a man, a woman or a child.

Here are some examples:

Ahmed Saluyev, 40 years old. Threatening him with arms, security agents laid him on the floor and beat him because he tried to help a 60-year-old woman who had fainted in fright.

Said-Magomed Chibilyaev, about 60 years old. He was struck in his shoulder by the butt of an automatic rifle because he had refused to lie down on the floor.

Khava Takayeva, 22 years old. Security agents gave her a slap in the face because she had heard noise and come out of the room. Then they pushed her with a sub-machine-gun and made her come back into her room.

Imany Visaitova, 12 years old. When strangers in masks came, she was in the corridor of the second floor. She wanted to run into her room but one man gave her a slap in the face and pushed her into her side with a sub-machine-gun so strong that she hit on the wall. The girl was in shock for a long time.

After awhile, the woman from the center's administration who was in charge of tenants' registration heard the noise and came. Attackers commanded her rudely to lie down on the floor, but she refused to do it.  Looking straight in the eyes of the men who had given her the order, she said, "You are Chechen, I see it in your eyes." After that the security agents ordered her to go into the room more politely, in Chechen. Then without concealing any more that they were Chechens, the security agents started leaving the building. None of the tenants was arrested. The attackers gave the gun back to the guards and ordered them to stay where they were until they left.

Official authorities of Chechnya have not reacted to the incident in the temporary accommodation center. As the victims say, no representative of the law-enforcement agencies, television or presidential administration has come to them. This incident has been simply covered up.

Tenants of the center wrote two claims: to President Kadyrov and to the leader of the United Russia party in Chechnya, Klintsevich, asking to protect them from security agencies' high-handedness. But they have received no answer yet.

It should be pointed out that this was not the first armed attack on this temporary accommodation center.