MOSCOW SAYS CAMPS MUST BE LIQUIDATED.

The official Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported on July 26 that, at a press conference held in Moscow, the first deputy head of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, Igor Yunush, announced that “camps for temporary [Chechen] migrants on the territory of Ingushetia must be liquidated during the current year.” In asserting this, he stressed that “no one will forcibly resettle people into Chechnya.” He claimed that only 5,000 Chechens IDPs (out of 90,000–he did not stipulate where this low figure came from) do not want to return to their homes in Chechnya. During June and July of this year, Yunush reported, 3,000 IDPs returned to Chechnya and another “10,000 declared their desire to return.”