More than 400 people disappeared last year in separatist Chechnya, official figures showed on Monday, but a rights group said the real figure may be four times higher. Pro-Moscow Chechen officials have complained that scores of people disappear every year, driven away by unidentified uniformed men. They have suggested that Russian forces hunting for separatist rebels might be responsible for many cases. The Russian military in Chechnya have denied the existence of so-called "death squads", which murder local residents on the slightest suspicion of having separatist links.
| Maybe they should give some thought to setting some up, then. Just do it right, without killing everybody in sight... |
"According to our information, 444 residents went missing in Chechnya in 2003," a Chechen Interior ministry spokesman said by telephone. "This is 20 percent less than in 2002." He said many of those missing were criminals on the run or had joined rebel gangs. Interfax news agency quoted rights group Memorial as saying the government number more or less corresponded to its figure of 473 for the year, but referred to only a third of the region. "The figure of 473 kidnappings needs to be multiplied three or four times in order to understand the real scale of what has happened," Memorial head Oleg Orlov told Interfax. President Vladimir Putin's, whose more than 70-percent popularity rating ahead of a March re-election bid owes much to his tough stance on Chechnya, scrapped the post of his human rights representative in Chechnya last month and entrusted Kremlin-backed president Akhmad Kadyrov with the task. On Monday the International Committee of the Red Cross Thingy (ICRC) said it still did not know where one of its kidnapped Chechen employees was. Usman Saidaliyev was abducted from his home during the night by unidentified armed men six months ago. "Since then neither Usman's family nor the ICRC have had any news of his whereabouts," the Red Cross said in a statement. "This is of deep concern to his family and colleagues." |