11:16, 18 March 2004

Lyudmila Alekseyeva: displaced persons return to Chechnya from Ingushetia under pressure

Internally displaced persons return to Chechnya from Ingushetia under pressure, asserts chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alekseyeva.

"I keep on insisting that displaced persons do not return to Chechnya voluntarily, they are forced to do it. Those who wanted have returned there long ago," Ms Alekseyeva said to the Interfax news agency on March 16. She does not agree with the authorities' plan to resettle people from the last two tent camps for Chechen refugees in Ingushetia.

"My attitude to the closure of tent camps is distinctly negative. People come to Chechnya, where it turns out that there are not enough places at temporary accommodation centers for all of them," said Ms Alekseyeva. She thinks the authorities want to liquidate tent camps in Ingushetia as "a sign of instability" in the North Caucasus.

Source: Interfax News Agency