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The report is based on visits to the camps “Bart” (Karabulak village) and “Bella” (Ordzhonikidze station) and on a discussion with Ivan Pomeschenko, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, head of Migrations Service of the Republic of Ingushetia. After the explosion at Ingushetia headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) on September 15 in the city of Magas, militia “reinforcement” primarily affected places of compact accommodation of forced migrants from the Chechen Republic. The access regime to Temporary Accommodation Centres (TACs) has been hampered for NGO representatives, both Russian and international, including humanitarian agencies, as well as for journalists. To get into a TAC, one needs to obtain a permit from the Migrations Service, which is a part of Interior Ministry structure. This directive came in force on September 16. On this day, Tatiana Lokshina, executive director of the Moscow Helsinki Group, visited the two sites “Bart” and “Bella”, and experienced in person a “new order”. At about 11 o’clock, when I was talking to a group of refugees in “Bart” camp, Mr. Medet, Senior Lieutenant of Militia, representing a “united working group of Russian Interior Ministry”, entered the tent and asked for the documents. Then he said that nobody except for camp residents or civil servants could stay on the camp territory, since from that day a permit of Migrations Service was required for that. My questions about whose directive this was, how the permit looked like, and how and when one could get it, did not get a comprehensive reply from Senior Lieutenant Medet. He answered indistinctly: “We have been said just this morning…Should understand yourself…Go to the Migrations Service; you will be informed…And I do not know…” I noted in my response that first, if Mr. Medet had been informed just in the morning, I could not have any chance to know about that. And second, since I am already on the camp territory, it would be fair to let me finish the talk with the people. And only after that I can proceed to Migrations Service. It should be admitted that at this moment we came to an agreement with Lieutenant Medet; the severity of Russian laws was once again mitigated by the optional character of their execution. Then I decided not to lose time and headed for “Bella” camp. The explanations of the lieutenant about obtaining a “permit” were so vague and unconvincing and reminiscent of local ‘initiatives’, that it was hard to take them seriously. But the same story happened in “Bella”. A quarter of an hour after my arrival, a man dressed in a suit, not in uniform, approached me. He asked for documents and explanations on the purpose of the visit. Being unused to give my documents to the first person I meet, I was curious to find out who the “suit” was. He introduced himself as Brechko Oleg Aleksandrovich, “deputy head of the temporary working group of Russian Interior Ministry”. My specific interest was provoked by significant discrepancies between the attributes to the notion of a “group” which existed as “united” for some employees and as “temporary” for the others. I posed the same questions to Mr. Brechko: what kind of “permit” is needed, how to get it, etc. Brechko gave an evasive answer: “Go to the Migrations Service, they will give all explanations to you”. However, I managed to talk to people in the camp, my trip being postponed. According to the information from “Memorial”, the situation in the “Bella” camp was alarming: “On September 15, a representative of the Migrations Service of the Russian Interior Ministry arrived in the tent camp “Bella” located on the outskirts of Ordzhonikidze station (Sunzhevskiy district). He neither gave his name nor showed any documents, but said that he was “Oleg Aleksandrovich” (Brechko). The official obliged all the camp residents to leave the site, because gas, electricity and drinking water supplies would be cut in the coming couple of days. Without starting an argument with displaced persons, “Oleg Aleksandrovich” left “Bella”. On September 16, Russian military arrived in the tent site. Having driven all around the streets, they stopped at the stalls where women-refugees sold provisions and sweets. The military informed the tradeswomen that they should dismantle their counters and other constructions because the next day tanks, BTR and a lot of live force were expected there”. On September 16 at about 3 PM Akhmed Parchiev, deputy head of Ingushetia Migrations Service arrived to “Bella”. He threatened the displaced persons that if they did not leave the camp immediately, gas and electricity supplies would be turned down and tents would be pulled down. After his departure, the entrance to the camp was blocked by Russian military stationed nearby, and representatives of humanitarian and human rights organisations are no longer allowed to enter its territory. Residents of “Bella” and other tent camps are waiting for the development of events with anxiety. They are close to panic and have already contacted “Memorial”, other organizations dealing with refugees and journalists for help”. This report lists only the recent troubles of the camp life. Here are some “needs and calamities” accumulated before. Two weeks have passed since the “Day of Knowledge” September 1st, but no primary school is operating in “Bella”. According to Ahyad Borzoyev, its director, 213 children from 1st to 4th grades are excluded from the learning process. The matter is that the school accommodates refugees since August 8, which were brought out from “Bella” to the “oskanovskie garages”. They were brought there to “better their living conditions”; however, it was impossible to live under these “conditions”: mass intoxication has started because the people had breathed in fumes of fuel and oil accumulated in the garages. The refugees were transported back to “Bella”, but their tents had been already pulled down and partly destroyed and people were accommodated in the school empty because of vacation time. Vacations were over but the people remained; there is no room to resettle them. In order to resume the classes, the residents were asked by the director to make room. Hello, school! People are refused to being put into new tents on the territory of “Bella”. They are offered to move into other camps – to “Satsita” (as Lieutenant-Colonel Pomeschenko says it has a capacity to accommodate hundred persons) or to “Alina” where the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will provide them with new tents. UNHCR will also equip 107 rooms in the places of compact settlements (simply to say dormitories). Residents of “Bella” received the same offer. Surprisingly, their number amounts either to 300 persons (according to the figures of Federal Migrations Service, as Pomeschenko claims) or to 1.200 (information provided by refugees), 500 of which are crossed out from the migration lists. The difference in numbers is so significant that I cannot give any comments on that. Accord to a directive of the Federal Migrations Service from 1st September, the “Bella” camp itself is declared closed. The suppliers of electricity, water and gas are informed that “they will get no payment any more” (here and further - according to Pomeschenko) but they are nevertheless asked to wait for a couple of weeks; it will be enough for the refugees to move out. “And 16 days have already passed, so today, or tomorrow or the day after electricity, gas and water will be cut in “Bella”. A special concern is caused by the check-ups both in “Bella” and “Bart” which aim to identify the persons absent on the camp territory as well as those present but not residing officially there. As the refugees say, such check-ups take place almost daily, and people are afraid to leave their tents. According to Pomeschenko, “planned check-ups” were taking place in all the tent camps once in two weeks from the beginning of July till mid August. However, no check-up happened in September. Check-ups are carried out by a Commission comprised by a militiaman, a camp major, a block commandant and in some cases a sanitary service representative. They aim to “discover the people who presented false data or are not registered in the TAC, and the people profiting by the refugee camp by owning for example three tents or by being placed in two TACs”. Lieutenant-Colonel Pomeschenko whom I met right after my visit to “Bella” in order to clarify among others the situation with the mysterious “permit for camp access”, told me a lot of new and interesting things. It was found out that refugees did not want to leave “Bella” because “different people arrive by new Toyotas from the UNHCR and cause troubles”. “The UNHCR representatives are carrying out a wrong policy. I do not know whose interests they are defending here? UN is leading a direct propaganda against the Russian authorities”. “Why “Bella” refugees are not willing to come to the Chechen Republic? All their relatives are shooting in the mountains at Vedeno!” “The UNHCR stores 150 houses and tents in the depot. They do not distribute them”. (The refugees have a different explanation: UN is ready to give them out any time, but the Federal Migrations Service does not allow them to do so. Pomeschenko showed me three unanswered letters to the UNHCR – from July, August and September – requesting them to provide 100 tents). Pomeschenko has repeated that TACs are the “objects of Interior Ministry” and that he is “personally responsible for each person”, those registered in the camp as well as those who entered its territory. It results in permanent check-ups and the necessity of prior notification of the Migrations Service in case representatives of public organisations are visiting a TAC. The latest rule is introduced because of the terrorist act in Magas, and it depends upon the situation how long it will last. The situation is tense. All is done to ensure security. When asked “whom should my colleagues or I contact next time in order to visit any of the camps”, he suggested to turn directly to him (“it could be insecure for you to go there at the moment”), and in case of his absence, to his Secretariat: they will re-copy my data there (I wonder whether Secretariat will guarantee my security!) At the end, Lieutenant-Colonel Pomeschenko complained: “I have been working in the militia for 20 years, and you know how many dregs I have seen in my life! It was not necessary to work in the militia; to live in our country was quite enough!” At this moment I was about to agree and cry… There was one more thing to agree with. The “Bella” camp is located in the field. Its sanitary status is “appalling”; the Sanitary Service repeatedly made pressure to terminate the camp. The camp is “not fenced” and it is hard to “ensure security of the residents at the night time”. Everything is true, and if people are placed into more comfortable sites, if the living conditions for the refugees are improved by shortening the number of camps, it would be a correct and good thing. But how does it correspond with squeezing out the refugees into Chechnya, moving them out of bad conditions into even worse? One more Pomeschenko`s utterance in the conclusion: “As Putin says, we should not mix cutlets with flies. We do not oblige them (the refugees) to go back to Chechnya, but they will live on the territory of Ingushetia only there, where we will tell them”. Tatiana Lokshina September 17, 2003 Back |
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