Human rights activists state increase of kidnappings in Northern Caucasus

Chechnya sees more and more kidnappings, as reported by the HRC "Memorial". The "Mashr" human rights organization, in its turn, reports that the count of kidnappings has decreased, but the number of murders is on the rise. This is the conclusion of experts, based on the data as of end of August 2009.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told at the Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization "Mashr" that from the beginning of 2009 six persons were kidnapped in Ingushetia. According to the head of the organization Magomed Mutsolgov, this statistics does not account disappearance of four persons. "There are suspicions that they had left for the forest by themselves; therefore, we don't count them," said Mr Mutsolgov.

Nothing is known about the fate of those persons, whose kidnapping can be stated by the "Mashr" with full confidence. "In relation to almost all 175 persons kidnapped or missing since 2002, the only thing that I can state is that their criminal cases were suspended in the context of impossibility to establish the person involved in kidnapping them," he has added.

In January-August last year, the "Mashr" registered six kidnappings. According to Mr Mutsolgov, now fewer kidnappings take place. He has added that kidnapping of one person is a great tragedy. "We have fewer kidnappings, but it's little joy, since we have much more murders," he said.

According to Alexander Cherkasov, a member of the Board of the HRC "Memorial", Ingushetia saw kidnappings and murders with imitation of combat operations.

Speaking about Chechnya, Mr Cherkasov marked that the region has come back to the 3-years-ago situation. According to the "Memorial", in the republic 79 persons were kidnapped in the first half-year of 2009. "By our incomplete data, in 2006, 177 persons were kidnapped, in 2007 - 35 persons, and in 2008 - 42 persons, and only in the first half-year of 2009 - 79 persons," said Mr Cherkasov.

He has added that these murders create the image that Russia has now. "It all indicates that power agents have gone out of control. Indeed, hardly the orders to burn people down come from the very top. It means that the control over the situation in the Caucasus was lost," Alexander Cherkasov has noted.

According to the Dagestan-based human rights organization "Mothers of Dagestan", in February-August 2009, 25 persons were kidnapped in this region.

The aggregate data about kidnappings in Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya are presented in the table below.