TITLE: Mined Mass Grave Discovered in Chechnya

AUTHOR:

PUB: Gazeta.Ru

DATE: February 26, 2001

Russian prosecutor for Chechnya Vsevolod Chernov announced on Saturday that 11 bodies were discovered in a mass grave found on the outskirts of Grozny, at what had once been a prospering dacha settlement for Communist party's bosses. The remains of three Chechen nationals were identified on the same day. They all were residents of Grozny, including a 16 year-old boy who had been missing since December 10, 2000. Vsevolod Chernov went to the scene himself. He informed the news agencies the grave had been mined and army engineers were sent to neutralize explosive devices after the area has been examined from helicopters. Local Chechen residents claimed the dead were the victims of the federal troops. Prosecutors refuted such conclusions as premature and insisted thorough investigation was needed to establish the guilty. Before the war broke loose in the Republic of Chechnya in early 90s, the Zdorovye dacha settlement had been a comfortable place to live for local party bosses. As of today, there is not much left of the Soviet-era luxury. The settlement is ruined and cottages are burnt. Local residents prefer to stay away from the area, for it is said to be loaded with land mines. But on Saturday a resident of Grozny, Chechen Sultan Moussayev came to the devastated settlement in the nearly hopeless search of his missing child and found the remains of his body. The remains could not be retrieved, because the area and the grave were mined. So he turned to army engineers and to police for assistance. It emerged that the whole area was deluged with explosives. In the course of the mine clearing, Federal military men discovered ten more dead bodies. Experts estimated the approximate age of the dead ranging from 16 to 35. The majority of them are said to be inhabitants of Grozny and Chechen nationals. Two victims, however, had blond hair, which is not common for locals. Experts assume DNA tests will be required to identify some of the dead, for the bodies had been dismembered, others deeply putrefied, which means that they all were killed not at the same time. Although it is yet difficult to reconstruct the picture of the crime, numerous versions have already emerged. It is quite unlikely, that all of the perished were killed by stray bullets, for someone had brought the bodies to a deserted settlement and mined the whole area afterwards. Federal authorities presume that the dead could have belonged to various rebel units and that they were killed in an internal clash. But then, experts have already established that all were killed at different time, and their bodies bear no signs inherent in fighters such as, for instance, callosities from carrying weapons on hands and shoulders. The federal officials said Saturday they dispose of evidence that in the course of the past 3-4 years there was a field base of Chechen rebels in that area, and allegedly they had built a prison to keep their hostages there. And still, many questions remain unanswered while experts have found out that some were killed quite recently, whereas the rebels had long since left the place. Local residents are convinced that civilians found in the mass grave near Grozny were killed by the federals after they had been detained in the course of the so-called purge operations. After his 16-year-old son went missing in December 2000, Sultan Moussayev appealed to the republican prosecutor's office and the investigation into the boy's disappearance was launched. Over 200 criminal proceedings have been instigated by the republican prosecutor's office at the request of desperate relatives, and none of the cases has ever been completed. Similar mass graves were discovered before. For instance, remains of over 150 Chechens were found in a mass grave in the vicinity of Tangi-Chu, Urus-Martan district. People who happened to witness how the remains were removed from the grave said later that the hands of the killed had been tied with barbed wire. Some of them were buried in the upright position, others were buried in layers? Naturally, investigation into the massacre has never been completed. END top