FRESH ABDUCTIONS IN CHECHNYA

Publication: North Caucasus Weekly Volume: 6 Issue: 27

Interfax reported on July 12 that two people were abducted in the Leninsky district of Grozny. According to the news agency, unknown people in camouflage uniforms burst into the home of Beslan Abdulaev and took him away to an unknown destination. Adlan Aliev, a 35-year-old builder, was abducted in the same district. Utro.ru reported on July 10 that the previous day unknown armed people had abducted a local resident of the village of Samashki, while other kidnappers abducted a 30-year-old woman from the village of Elestanzhi in the Vedeno district. The website noted that these abductions took place one day after a rocket-propelled-grenade and machine-gun attack on two Interior Troops vehicles that killed a senior lieutenant and injured nine other servicemen.

The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (ORChD) on July 11 identified the woman abducted in Elestanzhi as Razita Inderbaev, aged 30, and reported that she was seized from her home in the presence of her parents and sister, who is a mute. The ORChD reported that on the same day, unknown armed persons in camouflage uniforms kidnapped another village resident, 18-year-old Said-Khamzat Sataev. The group’s website quoted local residents as saying that the number of kidnappings of civilians by members of federal power structures had noticeably increased following the withdrawal of units of the Chechen presidential security service from the Vedeno district. The locals said the increase in the number of kidnappings was the result of the inertia of republican law-enforcement organs, which fear challenging Russian servicemen.

The ORChD also reported that federal forces shelled the outskirts of the village of Eshilkhatoi, also in the Vedeno district, on July 7. The group reported that the outskirts of the village of Makhkety had been shelled repeatedly over the previous week, and that while no local residents were hurt, 65 head of cattle had been killed.