TENSE SITUATION ON CHECHEN-DAGESTANI BORDER.

In recent days, tension in the districts of Dagestan bordering Chechnya has sharply intensified. On May 18, in Dagestan’s Untsukul district, someone fired a grenade launcher at a truck carrying Russian border guards, one of whom was seriously wounded. On Tuesday, the chief of administration of Dagestan’s Akushinsky district and his son-in-law were killed. These murders, however, was probably not the work of Chechens. The local branch of the Federal Security Service links them with the infighting between local clans which has already taken the lives of the two previous chiefs of administration. (NTV, May 19)

Meanwhile, Dagestanis have been holding protest meetings on the border with Chechnya. Earlier this week, several hundred Dagestanis have blocked movement across the Gerzel bridge, which links Dagestan with Chechnya. Meanwhile, residents of Dagestan’s Novolaksk district have blocked all roads leading to Chechnya along the routes Tukhchar–Nozhai-Yurt–Khasavyurt–Djohar and Novokuli–Duchi. The situation is also tense on the Mozdok to Kizlyar highway, where the road has been blocked near Dagestan’s border with Chechnya by residents of Kizlyar. The reason for their indignation: the latest kidnapping, of the director of the Tukhchar State Farm, Uvais Efendiev. (Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 19; NTV, May 19)

DAGESTANIS REPUDIATE “CONGRESS OF THE PEOPLES OF CHECHNYA AND DAGESTAN.”