Chechnya Leader:  President Ramzan Kadyrov Population:  1 million (few Christians) Main Religion:  Islam Government:  Republic (Russian Federation)

Since the civil war with Russia, most Russian Christians have left the country. Life is very difficult for the tiny number of Chechen Christians. Militant Islamic organisations exert pressure on society to adhere to the Islamic faith. New believers face pressure from their families to recant, as leaving Islam is seen as a betrayal of traditional Chechen values. There are several small groups of secret believers across the country.

Pray

• For ongoing political stability within the country and the whole Caucasus region
• That secret believers would grow in their knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus
• That the New Testament in the Chechen language, published in 2007, will reach believers, along with other Christian literature.

Visit Christian Martyrs >>

Return to Country Profiles >>

Situation in Chechnya

Forced disappearances

Human rights campaigners estimate that since September 1999 - the start of the second Chechen conflict - as many as 5,000 people have disappeared and are feared dead.[1] According to Amnesty International in 2005, Russian officials give about 2,000 as the official figure for "disappearances" since late 1999.[2]

• In March 2001 Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued the report titled The "Dirty War" in Chechnya,[3] which called the "disappearances" of detainees in the custody of Russian federal forces in Chechnya a major human rights crisis that the international community must address.

• On March 31, 2003, Akhmad Kadyrov, the head of the pro-Moscow administration of the Chechen Republic, has suggested that Russian federal forces are behind breaking into homes at night and abducting people. "People continue to go missing in Chechnya. They are taken away in the middle of the night. Their bodies are not found and they are never seen again," Kadyrov said to reporters in Grozny. "Through their crimes, they maintain tension in the republic, and their hands are stained with the blood of innocent people. The force is made up of kidnappers in armoured vehicles. They are a death squad." But according to many journalists and experts on Chechnya, many such abductions are the work of the Kadyrovites - Chechen security police headed by his son, Ramzan Kadyrov.^{[citation needed]}

• On February 25-February 26, 2006, Alvaro Gil-Robles, resigning Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Chechnya, together with his successor, Thomas Hammarberg; they criticized abductions, impunity and lack of security in Chechnya.^{[citation needed]} On March 2, 2006, Chechen ombudsman Nurdi Nukhadzhiyev stated the problem of forced disappearances of people in Chechnya cannot be solved by local authorities, adding that a special commission has to be created on the federal level.^{[citation needed]}

• On May 12, 2006, Dmitry Grushkin of the Memorial human rights group told Interfax that at least 1,893 residents of Chechnya have been kidnapped since 2002; of those, he said, 653 were found alive, 186 were found dead, and 1,023 "disappeared". Memorial monitors kidnappings for only 25-30 percent of Chechen territory.^{[citation needed]}

• On November 13, 2006, HRW published a briefing paper on torture in Chechnya that it had prepared for the 37th session of the United Nations Committee Against Torture. The paper covered torture by personnel of the Second Operational Investigative Bureau (ORB-2), torture by units under the effective command of Ramzan Kadyrov, torture in secret detention and continuing "disappearances." According to HRW, torture "in both official and secret detention facilities is widespread and systematic in Chechnya. Based on extensive research, HRW concluded in 2005 that forced disappearances in Chechnya are so widespread and systematic that they constitute crime against humanity."

[edit] Mass hostage takings

[edit] The Moscow theater hostage crisis

On October 23, 2002, over 40 militants took more than 700 hostages prisoner at a Moscow theater. The hostage-takers demanded an end to the Russian presence in Chechnya, and threatened to execute the hostages if their conditions were not met. The siege ended violently on October 26, when Russian troops were forced to storm the building after instant detonation of some explosion devices inside . Many casualties resulted from the fact that unconscious victims' airways were blocked and sub-optimal care was given during the rescue. In particular, the failure of Russian authorities to equip their troops with opioid antidotes and their efforts to conceal the identity of the gas for days afterward hindered efforts to save the lives of the stricken hostages.

Russian officials blamed separatist leaders Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Baseyev for the attack; both initially denied responsibility and insist that the attack was the work of independent rebels and terrorists. On November 2 Baseyev recanted his statements, assuming responsibility in a statement on his web site and apologizing to Maskhadov for not informing him of the plan.

[edit] The Beslan school siege

On September 1, 2004, a group of 32 heavy-armed masked men seized control of a Middle School Number One and more than 1,000 hostages in Beslan, North Ossetia. Most of the hostages were children from six to sixteen years old. Following a tense two-day standoff punctuated by occasional gunfire and explosions, Alpha Group of the OSNAZ raided the building. Fighting lasted more than two hours; ultimately 331 civilians, 11 commandos, and 31 hostage-takers died.

Once again, Russian officials publicly linked Baseyev and Maskhadov to the attack, and Baseyev again claimed responsibility in a September 17 website publication; Maskhadov denounced the attacks and denied involvement. The carnage at Beslan and the outcry it caused has had an unexpected effect on the tactics employed by Chechen separatists and their allies.

[edit] Other hostage incidents

• March 15, 2001 - Three Chechens hijacked a Russian Tu-154 plane with 174 people after it left Turkey; they forced a landing in Medina, Saudi Arabia. On March 16, Saudi commandos freed over 100 hostages, killing three people including a hijacker, a female flight attendant and a Turkish passenger. A Russian diplomat in Saudi Arabia said the leader of the hijackers was a "highly-trained military officer who appears to know what he is doing."

• April 22, 2001 - In Turkey pro-Chechen gunmen seized up to 100 hostages at a luxury hotel in Istanbul. The standoff involving had lasted nearly 12 hours before the hostage-takers armed with automatic rifles surrendered; police said they had encountered no resistance from the gunmen and there were no reports of anybody being injured.[4]

• October 29, 2004 - The State Duma hosted Vladimir Ustinov, head of the Prosecutor General's Office, to discuss the Putin administration's anti-terrorism strategy. As he explained it to the deputies, in future hostage-taking episodes the security agencies would have a formal statutory right to seize and detain the relatives of the suspected hostage-takers. The government would then let the terrorists know that it will do to these "counter-hostages" whatever the terrorists do to their own hostages.

Meanwhile, the practice of taking civilians hostages exists among officers of Russian and local security agencies in Chechnya. On March 1, 2004, officers of security agencies seized more than 30 relatives of former Ichkerian defence minister Magomed Khambiyev, including women, in the Khambiyev family's native village of Benoy in Chechnya's Nozhay-Yurtovsky District. Magomed Khambiyev got an ultimatum to lay down arms in exchange for lives of his relatives, and he did it giving himself up to the authorities in a few days.

• June 3, 2006 - Russian diplomats in Iraq were seized when their convoy was waylaid by the Mujahedeen Shura Council. One was shot during the kidnapping; three others were executed later. The group hoped to pressure Russia to allow Chechnya to secede and become an Islamic theocracy.

[edit] Massacres

[edit] Indiscriminate attacks

• On October 5, 1999, a bus filled with refugees reportedly was hit by a Russian tank shell, killing as many as 40 civilians and wounding several others.[5]

• On October 7, 1999, federal forces carried out a cluster bomb attack on the village of Elistanzhy in Vedensky District. Within several minutes 27 people were killed; among them only eight were men of the "fighting age", meaning aged 14 to 60. In the next two weeks 21 more wounded died of their wounds.

• On October 21, 1999, a series of a Russian ballistic missile strikes on the central Grozny killed at least 137 people, mostly civilians, and injured hundreds. The missiles hit the city's main marketplace, a maternity hospital and a mosque.

• On October 24, 1999, seven children were killed and 14 maimed by a Russian tank attack in Novy Sharoy; an adult man was also killed.[6]

• On October 29, 1999, the Russian Air Force carried out a rocket attack on a large convoy of refugees who were using a "safe exit" route. The casualties are estimated at 50-100, among them several Red Cross workers, two journalists and many women and children.

• On February 4, 2000, in an attempt to stop the Chechen retreat, Russian forces bombed the village of Katyr-Yurt and then a civilian convoy under white flags, killing at least 170 civilians, while many more were injured.

• On February 9, 2000, a Russian tactical missile hit a crowd of people who had come to the local administration building in Shali, a town declared as one of the "safe areas", to collect their pensions. The missile is estimated to have killed some 150 civilians, and was followed by an attack by combat helicopters causing further casualties. The Russian attack, which happened without any warning, was a response to infiltration of the town by a group of Chechen fighters who suffered little losses.[7]

[edit] Documented mass killings

• On December 3, 1999, at least 40 people fleeing the besieged Grozny were shot and killed by a Russian troops, leaving only seven wounded survivors.

• In early December 1999, Russian troops under command of general Vladimir Shamanov killed up to 41 civilians during two-week drunken rampage in the village of Alkhan-Yurt, near Grozny.

• In several incidents during December 1999 and January 2000 in the Staropromyslovski district of Grozny, Russian troops killed at least 50 unarmed civilians, mostly elderly men and women.

• A particularly brutal massacre was carried out on February 5, 2000 in the suburb of Novye Aldi, where suspected members of OMON from St Petersburg and contract soldiers summarily executed at least 60 civilians.

• Following the March 2000 Battle of Komsomolskoye about 70 Chechen combatants who were taken prisoner were officially amnestied, but almost all of them are believed to be murdered in captivity.

[edit] Terrorist bombings

• May 9, 2002 - An explosion of a Russian-made anti-personnel mine in the Dagestani town of Kaspiysk killed 45 and wounded some 175 soldiers and civilian bystanders during a military parade. A Dagestani pro-Chechen group blamed for an attack had previously killed seven Russian soldiers on January 18, 2001, in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala.

• June 12, 2005 - A bomb planted by a Russian nationalist extremists, said to be veterans of the Chechen wars belonging to the Russian National Unity group, derailed the Grozny-Moscow passenger train some 150 kilometers south of the Russian capital. Dozens of people were injured, but only eight hospitalized; on May 30, 2006 suspects Vladimir Vlasov and Mikhail Klevachyov have been charged with terrorism and attempting to commit murder motivated by ethnic or religious hatred.

[edit] Suicide bombings

Between June 2000 and September 2004 Chechen insurgents added suicide attacks to their weaponry. During this period there have been 23 Chechen related suicide attacks in and oustide Chechnya, targeting both military and civilian targets, and the profiles of the suicide bombers have varied just as much as the circumstances surrounding the bombings. Although only six of the attacks were directed against civilians, these attacks have drawn a lion's share of the publicity generated by Chechen suicide tactics.

• July 5, 2003 - 19 year old Zulichan Elichadzjijeva blew herself up outside a rock festival at the Tushino airfield near Moscow. Her bomb did not detonate as expected. 15 minutes later, only a few meters from where Zulichan blew herself up, 26 year old Zinaida Alijeva detonates her explosives and killed 11 people on the spot. Four more died in hospital. For many observers, the Tushino attacks appeared out of place.

• December 5-10, 2003 - A shrapnel-filled bomb believed strapped to a lone male suicide attacker ripped apart a commuter train near Chechnya, killing 46 people and wounding nearly 200. The explosion occurred during a busy morning rush hour when the train was loaded with many students and workers; it ripped the side of the train open as it approached a station near Yessentuki, 750 miles south of Moscow. Only five days later another blast shook Russia -- this time 5 people were killed and 44 injured on the Red Square in the very heart of Moscow. Shamil Basayev later claimed responsibility for organising the December 2003 attacks.

• February 6, 2004 - A bomb ripped through a Moscow metro car during rush hour morning, killing 40 people and wounding 134. A previously unknown Chechen rebel group claimed responsibility for the bombing; the claim came from a group calling itself Gazoton Murdash, and signed by Lom-Ali ("Ali the Lion"). According to the statement, the group launched the attack to mark the fourth anniversary of the killing of scores of Chechen civilians by Russian soldiers who took control of the Chechen capital Grozny.

• August 27, 2004 - 123 people killed by a female suicide bombers in the Russian aircraft bombings of August 2004. Basayev again claimed responsibility.

The Russian Government's policies in Chechnya are a cause for international concern.^[20][21] It has been reported that Russian military forces have abducted, tortured, and killed numerous civilians in Chechnya,^[77] but Chechen separatists have also committed abuses,^[78] such as abducting people for ransom.^[79] Human rights groups are very critical of cases of people disappearing in the custody of Russian officials. Systematic illegal arrests and torture conducted by the armed forces under the command of Ramzan Kadyrov and Federal Ministry of Interior have also been reported.^[80] There are reports about repressions, information blockade, and atmosphere of fear and despair in Chechnya.^[81]

As claimed in 2005 report by Memorial, there is a system of "conveyor of violence" in Chechen Republic (as well as in neighbouring Ingushetiya) when a person suspected in crimes connected with activity of separatists squads, is unlawfully detained by members of security agencies, and then disappears. After a while part of detainees is found in centers of preliminary detention (while some allegedly disappear forever), and then he is tortured to confess to a crime or/and to slander somebody else. According to Memorial, psychological pressure is also in use.^[82] Known Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya compared this system with Gulag and claimed the number of several hundred cases.^[83]

A number of journalists were killed in Chechnya or supposedly for reporting on the conflict.^[18][84] List of names includes less and more famous: Cynthia Elbaum, Vladimir Zhitarenko, Nina Yefimova, Jochen Piest, Farkhad Kerimov, Natalya Alyakina, Shamkhan Kagirov, Viktor Pimenov, Nadezhda Chaikova, Supian Ependiyev, Ramzan Mezhidov and Shamil Gigayev, Vladimir Yatsina, Aleksandr Yefremov, Roddy Scott, Paul Klebnikov, Magomedzagid Varisov, and Anna Politkovskaya.^[85]