Gil-Robles plans to clear out the reason of unknown children's disease in Chechnya

The problem of mass infection of children with unknown disease in Shelkovskoy District of Chechnya gets to the level of the Council of Europe. Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner of the Council of Europe for Human Rights, told the "Interfax" on Saturday evening that he "plans to raise the point at a high level."

"It's a very disturbing issue. It's the issue of sick children in Shelkovskoy District, and it causes concern. I think we need urgent and complete information on this issue; we need to find out the cause of the disease," Mr Gil-Robles has stated.

The Commissioner believes that "first of all, it is necessary to properly cure the children. If they need to be sent to Moscow, they should be promptly sent there and treated at the best hospital."

Alvaro Gil-Robles said that he had received detailed information about what happens in Shelkovskoy District in the course of his meeting on Saturday evening with activists of nongovernmental human rights organizations. During the meeting human rights activists also raised the issues related to search of missing persons, ecological situation and protection of civil rights, the NEWSru.com reports.

In particular, activists asserted that unsolved problems of liquidation of sources of radioactive radiation lead to sharp growth of the number of oncology patients. According to their data, 80 percent of all patients at the Rostov oncology hospital are residents of the Chechen Republic.

Mr Gil-Robles, as well as Thomas Hammarberg, the newly-appointed Commissioner of the Council of Europe for Human Rights, has stated that they would give special attention to these problems.

At the same time, human rights activists asserted that recently the Chechen Republic saw essential positive changes evidencing the rise of civil society.

The "Caucasian Knot" reported earlier that last December in Shelkovskoy District of Chechnya 87 disease cases were registered among children and adults in the villages of Starogladovskaya, Shelkozavodskaya and Shelkovskaya.

The Chechen doctors, who are treating the sick children from Shelkovskoy District of Chechnya from the first days, stick to their initial diagnosis, established for the children: "conversion pseudo-asthmatic syndrome of psychogenic reaction and conversion spasms".

On Thursday, February 23, in Chechnya, 11 more residents of Staro-Schedrinskaya village - 6 teachers of local school, 4 schoolchildren and the woman-cleaner - were brought to the district hospital with symptoms of poisoning with unknown substance.