Chechens move out of refugee camps under pressure

ORDZHONIKIDZEVSKAYA, Russia -- Terrified of the Russian troops fighting rebels inside Chechnya, Dzhabrail Galuyev says he would rather die than return to the republic he fled after fighting began three years ago.

But he and other refugees may have no choice: Russia closed one camp, and may cut gas and electricity to others if people don't go back, even if there's nothing waiting for them, human rights groups say.

"Even if soldiers come in tanks and forcefully throw people out of their tents, even then I won't leave, I'll die here," Galuyev said. "In that case, somebody would know about my death. There in Chechnya, I could simply disappear."

Like Galuyev, tens of thousands of Chechens are afraid to return to their homeland, where air strikes, artillery barrages and rebel attacks occur daily. The government says the refugees should return voluntary, but human rights groups say authorities have told residents of some camps that their gas and electricity will be cut off and threatened to frame them for crimes if they don't leave. One camp was closed in December.

"Declarations by Russian officials that refugees' return to Chechnya is completely voluntary is simply not true," Anna Neistat, head of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, said at a news conference Thursday. "These insistent attempts to return people to a conflict zone are absolutely incompatible with Russia's obligations under international law."

Russian officials deny allegations that they are pressuring refugees to leave the camps, but say the republic is safe. One pro-Moscow Chechen official said Thursday that some refugees may be reluctant to return because they have "dirty pasts."

"There are criminals, rebels among them," Vakha Baibatyrov, a Moscow representative of Chechnya's Kremlin-backed administration, told Echo of Moscow radio.

The United Nations says about 20,000 people live in the tent camps, and another 90,000 stay with relatives or in makeshift shelters in Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya to the west.

The population at Galuyev's camp in Ingushetia, called Bella, has fallen by a third in recent months, to about 4,000, amid threats it will soon be closed. The camp is about 1,000 miles south of Moscow.

"Two weeks ago, about 12 to 15 soldiers, all officers, came here. They told the people it would be better for them to go away now, when they could be helped with their move ... than when the gas and electricity is cut off," said Anya Kosenko, 24.

"The soldiers said the decision to close the camp had already been made and the choice would be whether you would freeze to death in the cold, or move," she said.

Among the refugees' biggest fears are the loathed "mopping-up" operations that Russian troops conduct in Chechnya in search of rebels. Civilians complain of wide abuses in these operations: innocent young men seized and never seen again, others summarily executed or beaten.

When people say they are afraid of the mop-ups, the officials threaten to begin security sweeps in the camps and arrest refugees on false weapons or drug charges, said Neistat, who just returned from the region.

Members of President Vladimir Putin's human rights commission departed for Ingushetia on Thursday to investigate the situation. But the Kremlin clearly wants refugees to return home to back up its contentions that life in Chechnya is returning to normal.

Kosenko and her family are looking for other options, but their prospects are grim.

They were offered a private room in Ingushetia -- 150 square feet to house five people, and will probably take it, Kosenko said.

Away from the camp, they will not have access to handouts of food and other aid, and may have to rely on the pittance earned by the women of the family from knitting socks.

"If we go there, I can't even imagine how life will be," said her husband, Dmitry.

Neistat said many other housing options in Ingushetia are a sham.

She said migration officials gave Human Rights Watch a list of 18 facilities they said could accommodate 224 families. But Human Rights Watch found many of the buildings were overcrowded or didn't exist. Neistat showed a photograph of one address: It was a concrete shell of a building with no roof.

Many refugees who have left for Chechnya have been turned away from temporary housing there because of overcrowding, Neistat said.

One family at the Bella camp, the Umarovs, grimly packed their belongings as neighbors gathered to say goodbye.

On the fringes of the unhappy group lurked the only camp residents who seemed happy -- cats, waiting for the Umarovs to tear up the floorboards of their tent to take with them for firewood.

Whenever a departing family does that, the mice living underneath scatter for new shelter, a bounty for the cats as the refugees move to new deprivations.