Bodies of casualties of March 2 special operation in Ingushetia are not given out to relatives

Movlatkhan Kartoeva, mother of the four men assassinated in the course of the special operation conducted on March 2 in the Ingush village of Ekazhevo, says that so far the bodies of her sons are not given out to her for funerals.

"Our family addressed back in March; and our relatives wrote an application to the Public Prosecutor of Ingushetia; however, the bodies were not given out," said the woman.

Let us remind you that relatives of the persons killed on March 2 in the course of the special operation in Ekazhevo and other local residents said that the assassinated Kartoev brothers - Tukhan, Nazir and Magomed - rendered no armed resistance. At the same time, according to statements of power agents, the suspected militants were blocked, then, refused to surrender, responded with automatic fire and were shot dead in the skirmish. Several more residents of Ekazhevo were detained. Later, the casualties and detainees in the course of that special operation were named to be involved in the explosion of the "Neva-Express" train in autumn 2009. Subsequently it became known that on that day Said Buryatskiy, one of the leaders of the underground, was shot dead in Ekazhevo.

According to Movlatkhan Kartoeva, she and her relatives practically have no hope for justice. On March 2 she not only lost all her sons - power agents ruined all the Kartoevs' houses built by the family in the course of decades, hijacked their cars and plundered their property, the woman complained.

"It was six in the morning. <…> My sons jumped out into the street dressed as they were," said Movlatkhan.

According to her story, at first power agents shot dead her son Tukhan in situ; then, they rushed into where my daughters-in-law lived and grasped them - Makka, Beslan's wife, and Zalina, Tukhan's wife. "They started crying, and they were told: 'we'll ruin your houses down. We are paid 90,000 per hour when we work here with you.' They call it work. This scale of genocide, such marauding could not be imagined even under fascisms," said the mother.

"The senior daughter-in-law received murder threats of her and her children. I don't know who those attackers were, power agents or not. Savages - I can't find another word for them. They said no normal words, just swore and cursed," the woman recollects.

She said that those who rushed into their house took away all the documents - passports, children's birth certificates and even documents on parent's capital. "They took everything valuable that they could carry away. The rest was burnt down together with our destroyed houses," she said and added that after all that she was hospitalized by means of an ambulance.

"In the meantime they killed Tukhan and Ahmed, then Nazir. <…> Then they drove up in their cars - Urals and UAZs - and loaded all out belongings on them. They took away our crystal glassware, our carpets, our furniture - everything, everything, even packs of children's disposable diapers. <…> And when they had already taken away anything and decided to bomb down our houses, they said that they were attacked in response from them," Movlatkhan concluded her story.

Now, she lives with her husband Umatgirei in a trailer near their incinerated house. Their four daughters-in-law went to live, together with their children, to their relatives. According to the woman, nobody even promised to them any compensation for the destroyed houses and lost property.

However, most of all the aged parents are worried with another problem. "We went to Magas, to the parliament. My husband asked to give out bodies of our children. Under our laws, bodies should be buried. A body should have a tomb. Umatgirei said that we didn't know any Buryatskiy," said Movlatkhan.

Meanwhile, according to sources close to the leadership of Ingushetia, the bodies are now at the forensic-criminalistic laboratory in Rostov. The local MIA offered to address on the issue of receiving them to the ICPO to Moscow; however, the requests sent there remain unanswered; and employees there refuse to make any telephone comments on the "Neva-Express" case.

In the meantime, Ruslan Albakov-Myarshkhi, an employee of the office of Ombudsman in Ingushetia, assures that he heard nothing about details of the special operation in Ekazhevo.

"But even if I've heard anything, all the same, I can't do anything on the issue, when people don't address me," he said.

In his turn, Dzhambulat Ozdoev, Ombudsman in Ingushetia, said: "We are highly grieved of the fact that innocent people suffer, and that old people lost their house. This phenomenon - burning houses down - came to us from somewhere outside. Aged parents remain without home. Innocent people should not suffer - this is the most important point."

Mr Ozdoev has emphasized that he is only one month is the position of Ombudsman. "We try to react operatively. Our employees go to places as a fire-fighting crew, but it appears that the situation as described in the application has nothing to do with reality. People think that the more they write in the application, the better will be for them," he said.