ECtHR awards 1.64 million euros to families of missing residents of Chechnya and Ingushetia

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ordered Russian authorities to pay compensation to relatives of 20 persons, who disappeared during special operations in Chechnya and Ingushetia.

The "Caucasian Knot" has repeatedly reported about ECtHR's decisions on complaints about violent disappearances of residents of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Thus, on May 28, the Court decided that 1.168 million euros should be paid to families of 12 disappeared residents of Chechnya.

Relatives of the missing persons appealed to the ECtHR after the inquiry conducted in Russia of disappearances of residents of Chechnya and Ingushetia in early 2000s brought no fruit, while the authorities gave "formal responses" to complaints with, the ECtHR's website has noted. Some complaints dealt with disappearances of people after they had been detained by people in military uniform.

The ECtHR has considered complaints addressed to the Russian government within the cases "Esambaeva et al vs. Russia", "Abubakarova et al vs. Russia" and "Mukhtarova et al vs. Russia".

Apart from the 1.47 million euros of compensation for the material damage, the ECtHR has awarded other 170,000 euros as compensation for moral harm, the "Novaya Gazeta" writes.

Since 2001, the ECtHR has issued more than 250 decisions on complaints of enforced and violent disappearances of residents of Chechnya and Ingushetia, said the lawyers of the "Legal Initiative" Project and the Ingush branch of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".