#6323
#14
Russia Won't Force Chechens Back
June 24, 2002
By JIM HEINTZ
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia has promised that refugees from Chechnya, afraid to return to their separatist republic while fighting continues and Russian forces carry out ``mopping-up'' operations, will not be forced to go back, a top U.N. official said Monday.
President Vladimir Putin also addressed the issue Monday during a news conference where he said the mopping-up operations must end once and for all - but indicated the practice will stop only when Chechen police have a firm grip on the region, perhaps by next year.
Earlier this month, the prime minister of Chechnya's Kremlin-backed government, Stanislav Ilyasov, was quoted as saying that his administration had decided to transfer tens of thousands of Chechen refugees back to the republic from tent camps in neighboring Ingushetia.
That announcement, reflecting the Kremlin's long-standing contention that the war is virtually over, raised wide concern - both because years of war have left Chechnya's buildings and infrastructure in ruins and because civilians continue to complain they are abused in Russian operations in which communities are sealed as troops search for rebels.
``I have been given direct and firm assurances that no plans are under way to force displaced persons back to their homes,'' Olar Otunnu, U.N. special representative for children in armed conflicts, said after a weeklong trip to Chechnya and the neighboring Russian republics of Ingushetia and North Ossetia.
More than 300,000 people have lost their homes in the conflict - 160,000 of them displaced within Chechnya and 150,000 in Ingushetia - about half of them children, Otunnu said.
``All the displaced persons I met are very eager to return to their homes, however they remain very concerned about the issue of security,'' he said.
On Monday, two Chechen security officers were killed when their car was blown up in the republic's capital, Grozny, Interfax news agency reported.
``I call on all those responsible to stop these practices. They are entirely unacceptable,'' Otunnu said.
Otunnu said he had received reports of the separatists recruiting children as young as 12 to fight - particularly to place land mines and other explosives - and also called on Russia to ratify an international convention setting 18 as the minimum age for participation in combat.
In the two phases of the Chechnya war, more than 3,200 children have been killed, Otunnu said.
Russian troops left Chechnya in 1996 after 20 months of fighting, but returned in 1999 following incursion by Chechnya-based rebels into neighboring Dagestan and after some 300 people were killed in apartment bombings blamed on the rebels.
Back to the Top Next Issue
- Back to the Top -