Human Rights Center "Memorial"

"Mopping-up" operation in the village of Chechen-Aul 24 to 26 December 2001

On the night of 24 December 2001, the village of Chechen-Aul in the Grozny village region was sealed off by Russian troops. The following morning a "special operation" began. A large number of armoured vehicles took part. The numbers of the vehicles had been smeared with mud. The commander of the special operation was General Bogdanovskii. The general made contact with the village administration and suggested that some local youths ride on one APC in each of the divisions in his unit and observe the operation. The head of the administration suggested that rather than local youths, some of the village elders from the council ride with the APCs. The general agreed to the proposal.

Local police were not only not allowed to monitor the operation but some of them were also arrested without reason. The elders were in fact allowed to observe everything that went on, but were not able to influence the operation in any way and in particular were unable to prevent people being arrested and beaten up.

No representatives of the procurator's office were present in the village during the special operation; the people in charge of the "mopping-up" operation did not cooperate with the head of the local administration. Thus yet again order 145 of the Commander of the Unified Military Group and order 46 of the Procurator General of the Russian Federation on the procedure for carrying out operations of this type were not observed.

During the operation the soldiers went on a blatant rampage of pillaging. They took anything they wanted, from video equipment to kitchen utensils and food. School Number 2 was also attacked. The soldiers smashed in the front door and the doors of the rooms and took away Christmas presents which had been prepared for the children.

Soldiers in the home of one mentally retarded person, seeing a large number of dirty dishes, began beating him and asking who had been there.

During the "mopping-up" operation at least 100 people were detained and taken out to a field on the outskirts where the headquarters for the operation was based. The detainees spent the whole night from 25 to 26 December outdoors in sub-zero temperatures. Among them was the mullah of Chechen-Aul who was kept there for nearly 48 hours.

Many inhabitants were able to buy their freedom from the soldiers. However, various separate groups of soldiers came into the same homes and there was clearly no understanding between the groups. Thus on a number of occasions men who had already been "checked" were arrested by a second group. One young man was taken from his home, held until the evening and then set free. The next day, he went to the funeral of a relative, where soldiers tried to arrest him again. However, his mother bought his freedom for 2,000 roubles. A little while later, he caught the attention of a third group of soldiers and was arrested all the same.

On 25 December, around 50 of those arrested were taken to the former chicken farm near the village of Starye Atagi (where a "mopping-up" operation began the next day).

Three of those detained during the "mopping-up" operation were not released. In relation to two of them (Umalt Ayubich Abaev, born 1978, from Khasavyurt (who had come to Chechen-Aul for the funeral of his uncle and held a certificate from the village administration confirming this fact) and Ramzan Rasaev, born 1965, from Chechen-Aul) it was only possible to get an unofficial statement on 30 December that they had been taken to the [IVC VOVD] for the Grozny region at the Goryachevodskaya station. Astamirov (who is ill with acute tuberculosis and was taken from his bed) was held outdoors for 48 hours prior to this.

As at 15 January 2002, has not been possible to ascertain the location of Ramzan Rasaev (from the village of Chechen-Aul, born 1965).

On 26 December the soldiers left the village of Chechen-Aul and went off to the village of Starye Atagi. As they left, some of them said: "We'll see in the New Year together!". As a precautionary measure, those who could sent their men folk and boys to Ingushetia.

On the morning of 27 December a bus was leaving Chechen-Aul carrying workers. On the road leaving the village its path was blocked by an APC. All the men were ordered off the bus and told to lie on the ground. The soldiers began checking their documents. At the same time, the soldiers burst into houses on the edge of the village, raided them and took away two men (Said-Khussein Abdulkhadzhiev (20 years' old and living temporarily as a refugee in the village of Chechen-Aul) and Ali Dalaev (from Chechen-Aul). On 28 December their bodies were seen at the chicken farm in Starye Atagi. On 29 December soldiers handed over the bodies to their relatives.

"As I reached the school at about 7.20, I saw soldiers smashing in the doors. I called out to tell them to stop and that I had a key. But they started shouting the most filthy abuse at me. In the corridor they smashed a partition and shouted that we were all bandits…"

The boiler stoker, Dashaev, was in the school at the time. He was dragged outside and beaten in the courtyard. Then they threw him into an APC and took him out to the field where they had already put up tents. They held our biology teacher, who was walking home with two children, for several hours in the centre of the village.

From the school they even took hammers, pliers and nails. The school was closed during the "mopping-up" operation and New Year celebrations had to be postponed.

When they (the soldiers) were beating people up they would shout: "Why don't you put up any resistance? Why don't you run away?"

The soldiers walked around the village in groups. First they would look around a building without committing any offence. Then they would ask the owners to sign a statement that no offences had been committed. Then, often, the same people would go back a second time and take whatever they wanted."

"They smashed all the doors in the school and the floors in the hall around the Christmas tree. They took the presents which had been bought with parents' money worth around 2,500 roubles.

They wanted to take away the brother of our after-school assistant. She held on to him and they hit her with the stocks of their machine-guns.

In the house of Ginazov, a teacher in middle school Number 2, the soldiers decided to take a video player. When the owner said that he wouldn't let them have it, they simply threw it on the floor. That night, twenty men in camouflaged uniforms burst into Ginazov's house and took away a Honda generator. The owner couldn't move as he had the barrel of a machine-gun pointing at him."

"They spotted a small Honda generator in my courtyard and didn't even bother to ask for my passport. Amongst themselves they were saying: "Let's take it".

In the courtyard of the Kantaevy family they started beating up one of the sons who was ill. The second son intervened to help his brother. He fought with the soldiers and knocked down two of them. It is odd that they didn't kill the brothers.

They stole the children's sports clothes and broke into the safe where the most valuable item was a ball which had been given to them as a present by Michael Jordan and brought back from America. The legendary player had played with this ball at the MBA. They burst the ball."

Vakha Dukhaev: "We were searching for three people who had disappeared during the "mopping-up" operation. We found two of them, Abaev and Astamirov, five days later in Goryachevodskaya in the Grozny region [IVS VOVD]. But we couldn't find Rasaev anywhere. Yesterday, a woman from Stary Atagi said that she had seen two corpses at the chicken farm where they take detainees. We drove there and identified Dalaev Ali and a refugee from Dachu-Borzoi, Abdulkhadzhiev Said-Khussein. My nephew, who is the mullah for our mosque, saw them as well. He was held there also. They wouldn't release the bodies yesterday. They only released them today."

Ginazov: "Yesterday I spoke with the head of the administration for Stary Atagi. It is indescribable what is going on there. The day before yesterday, I took with me the local head of the [VOVD], a lieutenant-colonel and several policemen. They are from Ryazan. They wouldn't let them through. On the road (on the way in to the village) there is a checkpoint and they wouldn't let us through. They refused to release the bodies yesterday. The deputy commander gave an order that the bodies be released, but the guard refused to release them. They were only released today. I travelled in the car which carried the bodies. Dalaev had been riddled with bullets and Abdulkhadzhiev had clearly been tortured and beaten to death."