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HR news |
"Cleansing Operation" in the Village of Alleroy, 16th –27th of August 2001
On 24th of August, the Human Rights Center "Memorial" informed the public about the "cleansing operation" in the village of Alleroy. That information had been received from various sources.
On September 2nd, Natalya Estemirova, a member of the Human Rights Center, took interviews from residents in the village of Alleroy, visited houses that had been looted and the ruins of burnt houses. The information she collected confirmed what we reported earlier about the claensing operation, except for one fact. At the moment, there is no reliable confirmation of the shooting of nine people in the village.
Below follows a description of the cleansing operation in the village of Alleroy, based on the information collected by Estemirova.
On the 16th of August, 2001 at dawn, the village of Alleroy in the Kurchaloevskiy district was blocked by military vehicles. Several thousand servicemen participated in the operation (according to residents of the village, their number was at least 7000 servicemen). Obviously, servicemen of the federal forces as well as members of special operation units of the MVD (Ministry of the Interior) and the FSB (Russian secret service) took part in the operation.
Later, TV stations reported that the operation was being carried out in order to detain A. Maskhadov. However, the residents of Alleroy confirm, that Maskhadov was not in Alleroy during the course of these days. Even if he had been there, the operation hardly would have been successful, because the passage and approach of heavy military equipment was to be heard in the neighboring villages, the residents of which could have warned A. Maskhadov in advance.
Still, a small armed group, consisting of residents of Alleroy, probably members of Chechen rebel formations, was blocked in the village. According to the media, the members of this group as they tried to leave the village, came up against the Russian servicemen and joined the battle. Six members of this armed group died as a result of this battle. According to the residents of the village, those six people were first caught and then shot - supposedly there were wounds on their bodies resulting from abuse when they still were alive. However, the Human Rights Center has no reliable information which allows to confirm that those six people did not die in combat.
In the morning, the military vehicles entered the village, and the federal forces took complete control over Alleroy. The residents were forbidden to walk the village. Some residents were not allowed to leave their homes for several days, and they suffered shortage of food supplies.
On entering the village, the servicemen opened uncontrolled fire. Such shooting was resumed also during the following days. As a result of this, Bisultanov, a 20 years-old resident of Alleroy, was fatally wounded on the 18th of August.
As the local doctors were blocked from the very beginning of the "cleansing operation", residents wounded could not get qualified medical help.
On the first day of the "cleansing operation" of Alleroy, the neighboring village of Tsentoroy was blocked, too. During this blockade, the servicemen killed a 17 years-old boy, who was working in his garden. This boy was a second nephew of Kadyrov. In earlier reports of the media as well as the Human Rights Center "Memorial", this boy has been dubbed a shepherd.
In the course of ten days the "cleansing operation" continued, the participating servicemen arbitrarily detained the male residents of the village from the age of 14. Most of the detainees were brought to the temporary base of the federal forces, located on hills not far from Alleroy. This place has gained already a sad reputation for the extraordinary cruel abuse of civil residents, who had been kept there in pits there in the last years. Now, residents detained in Alleroy were not only kept in such pits, but also in a former water reservoir, which emits a terribly noxious odor. According to Alleroy residents, about 700 people were brought to the base in the course of the "cleansing operation".
On the 17th of August, three fighters, who obviously had been detained long ago in another place, were brought to the place where the detained Alleroy residents were kept. They were covered with old discharging wounds. The Alleroy residents were put next to them and photographed together with them. Some detainees got a machine gun around their neck and were photographed in this way.
The detainees were interrogated in order to obtain information on the whereabouts of Maskhadov, and they were forced to sign a confession that they belong to "illegal armed formations". The interrogations were led by members of the FSB, who behaved in a relatively correct way towards the detainees. However, whenever the interrogator turned away, the guards (obviously members of special operation units) beat up the interrogated and tortured them.
A lot of the detainees were tortured with electric current; electrodes were attached to their fingers, toes and genitals. Several detainees were electrodes attached to their ears, and it was abuseively suggested to "give a call". Several detainees had their heads squeezed with plaits.
Some of the detainees could not bear the torture and signed confessions.
On the 18th of August, Soltamuradov,a young man, was beaten to death a result of an interrogation.
The servicemen also behaved cruelly towards the detained women. For example, Musaeva, the wife of one detained resident, was brought to the base. Her husband was cruelly beaten, and the servicemen undressed her completely, cut her with knifes and threatened to cut out her baby from her womb. Musaev signed all papers that were presented to him, after that they let his wife go.
A 17 year-old girl was detained becaused she had answered sharply to a serviceman. She was dragged on her hair through the village and brought to the base. Only after two days her relatives managed to free her with the help of a representative of the district commandant's office.
On the territory of the base, the detainees were "filtered". Some were released after being interrogated, others were brought to Kurchaloi and detained in a "isolation cell of temporary detainment" (IVS). To these cells people were brought who had signed a "confession", wounded (several residents, including women, had been wounded as a result of the uncontrolled shooting), and those who inspired any suspicion to the servicemen. For example, a woman who was known to be participating actively in rallies, was brought there. A man, who was teaching boys and young men karate, was first cruelly beaten and then brought to Kurchaloi – the servicemen accused him of training fighters.
Out of 52 people who had been brought to the IVS in Kurchaloi, 11 were released by 2nd September. Noone of them had ben interrogated while they were at Kurchaloi. Among those who stayed there were the following:
one person, suffering from mental illness;
one person with open tuberculosis;
a wounded old man named Ayskhanov (see below);
his son, wounded by shrapnels in his jaw;
two women - the one who was accused of participating in rallies, and the other one because a machine gun was found in her garden.
Those who were released after the "filtration" frequently did not manage to get home. They were walking home through the "protected" village, and then detained again by servicemen from other units and again brought to the base. Some of the residents of Alleroy were "filtered" thus 4 –5 times, which caused trouble for the servicemen themselves. Therefore, the officers in command of the "cleansing operation", suggested after consultations with the residents, that all those who had passed the "filtration" should gahter in the village school and stay there until the end of the operation. Until this, in the course of two days, the servicemen had detained 14 –16 year old students from the school.
The servicemen set up computer in the school and started to check the returning people with the help of a database. Gradually, people started to come to the school themselves, hoping to be checked with the database and avoid the "filtration" at the military base. As a result of this, about 2700 people gathered in the school. The premises were cramped and many had to sleep in the yard. In this way people spent seven days in the school.
On the third or fourth day of the "cleansing operation", a crowd of women gathered at the school, bringing food for their relatives. In this moment an officer arrived at the school, obviously one of those leading the operation. The women as well as the men turned to him with complaints about the lawlessness imposed on them. This officer, who introduced himself as General, replied: "Bandits, I'm not sorry for you! I'm only sorry for the women and the children". And, turning to his subordinates: "Eagles, don't spare their homes!"
Only women, old people and children remained in the homes. The soldiers threatened to burn the houses if they would find jus one cartridge – the residentswere not afraid as much of their homes being looted as of that cartridges or weapons would be plantewd in their houses.
Usually, during a "checking" of a home, the residents were thrown out into the yard and kept with arms aimed at them. At the same time, the servicemen took from the houses everything they liked: carpets, TV sets, audio- and videoequipment, gold, money.
At the beginning of the "cleansing operation", the servicemen detained the mensfolk from three neighboring houses belonging to the Musaev family, drove the women and children in the basement of the house in the middle, planted mines in the other houses and blew them up. After that, they poured gasoline on the middle house and set fire to it. They prevented the women and children from leaving the basement, although they could have suffocated in the smoke. The servicemen, taking the detained men with them, finally left, and only after that the people could leave the basement of the burning house. The house burnt down completely, even the cover of the basement crashed down.
The soldiers also blew up and burnt the houses of the Umarkhadzhievich, Akhmievich, Kerchimovich and Lalaev families. The soldiers intended to throw grenades into another house. The head of the family pleaded on his knees not to do this: in the house were his children and grandchildren. The servicemen led all children into the yard, stood them against a wall and aimed with machine guns at them. A three-year old girl asked in Chechen: "Grandaddy, what is this, some game?" The soldiers demanded that the old man translated what she had said – he explained it, and the soldiers left.
The srevicemen drove Ayskhanov and Tsukuev, two old men, into the basement of a house were two women were hiding, and threw grenades into the basement. All four suffered severe injuries, one woman had her legs crippled, the other one lost her eyes and is in a serious condition. Later, Ayskhanov was detained and brought to the IVS in Kurchaloi.
It is not known why the servicemen paid such special attention to these houses.
On the third-fourth day of the "cleansing operation", the servicemen started to catch 11-13 year old boys, to gather them in groups and beat them up. The mothers began to hide their children. Some boys were detained in pits for several days.
The "cleansing operation' also was accompanied by sacrileges. The soldiers took all ecclesiastical literature from a student of theology, later pages from these books were found in a toilet. Several servicemen climbed the minaret, first shouting "Allah akbar", then "Achtung, Achtung". In the mosque, the servicemen defecated on the carpets and destroyed the floor under the pretext of searching for hidden arms. They broke the grave of the saint Abbas-Khadzhi, and left abusive inscriptions on the walls of the zikkura (burial site of a saint).
On the cemetery, the servicemen opened to fresh graves under the pretext that fighters might be buried there. Directly among the graves, the soldiers drank alcohol, and took a sunbath, almost naked, which is intolerable according to Chechen traditions.
The servicemen started to leave the village on the eleventh day of the "cleansing operation". A day before the head of the administration of the Chechen Republic, A.-Kh. Kadyrov had announced on TV, that Maskhadov managed to leave the village.
When the soldiers left, the residents counted in only one out of three exit direction 645 armoured vehicles. After the soldiers had left it became clear that mines had been planted in several houses. Children found mines by chance. On the third day after the soldiers had left, the 12 year-old Abdurakhmanov found a mine which exploded in his hands, ripping them off.
Several days after the "cleansing operation" had ended, the residents turned with complaints about pillaging and violence to the district commandant's office. Soon nine soldiers of temporary duty were brought into the village and were force to apologize before them for alleged pillaging. The soldiers obediently apologized. However, one of these nine soldiers said: "Please forgive for what I have not done." The commandant took him aside immediately. The local residents declared that it was not these soldiers that had been pillaging.
None of the stolen possessions was ever returned.
It is worthwile noticing, that just in the days of the "cleansing operation" of Alleroy, soldiers tried to sell carpets at a low price at the market of the neighboring village Novogroznenskoe. After the selling of two carpets a scandal happened – the local residents were deeply disturbed by the incident, and the soldiers had to leave the market quickly.
Human Rights Center "Memorial", Moscow
"Cleansing Operation" in the Village of Alleroy, August 15th – 24th , 2001
