Residents of Gumbetovsky District tell about Chechnya's claims on pastures

The concern of the villagers of Mekhelta, the district centre, was caused by the claims of the Chechen party to 160 hectares of summer pastures, which had been used by generations of local shepherds, said the village head and a local resident.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the authorities of Chechnya and Dagestan agreed to complete the delineation of the mutual border by the end of 2019. The authorities of both republics do not ask each other to cede any territories, as stated by Magomed Daudov, the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament. At the same time, on February 7, at a meeting in the village of Mekhelta of the Gumbetovsky District, it was stated that Chechnya had presented a number of claims at the section of the border.

Villagers are concerned about the fate of 160 hectares of pastures: the fact that these lands could be transferred to the neighbouring republic was announced at a meeting of the Chechen authorities with the Dagestan delegation in Grozny on February 5, said Magomed Abdunasirov, the head of the administration of the village of Mekhelta.

"At the meeting, villagers stated that these are our lands. Our ancestors herded cattle on them," the head of the village told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The disputed land site is located on the border of the Gumbetovsky District of Dagestan and the Nozhai-Yurt District of Chechnya, one of local residents has explained.

"This territory is still used by Mekhelta villagers as a summer pasture. From time immemorial, our ancestors grazed their cattle there. Now the Chechen authorities got maps of 1983, and in them the site in question is on the other side of the Dagestani border. We don't yet know how it was documented then," he told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 11, 2019 at 10:23 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.