07 October 2005, 16:28
Refugee camp unheated
Most rooms in a temporary accommodation point (TAP) for internally displaced persons in the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, are still unheated.
Dwellers of the Okruzhnaia TAP in Grozny's Zavodskoi district complain that no heat is supplied to their panel houses to date. Autumn cold weather is already beginning to affect the forced migrants.
"The small houses in which we live are made of thin panels. There are huge gaps, and there are draughts everywhere. Adults can stand piercing cold after all, but what about children? No heat supply system has yet been connected, we have to take some measures by ourselves — winterise the rooms, fill in the gaps," a TAP dweller, Zaman, 45, said. "Wherever we apply to - the migration service, the district administration, etc. — everywhere officials have one and the same answer: no funding. I cannot even imagine what will be in winter."
Zaman says that two years ago when refugees were transferred from camps in Ingushetia, local government representatives promised that all necessary conditions for normal living will be provided to them. "In reality, everything has turned out to be different," she says. "Living in the TAP does not practically differ from living in tarpaulin tents in anything. The same cold in winter and stifling heat in summer, and practically the same problems as in Ingushetia. It was promised that 500,000 roubles would be allocated for the needs of our TAP as far back as last year, to the best of my knowledge. This money has not been allocated to date."
Author: Sultan Abubakarov, CK correspondent
