Ingushetia: Chechen refugees plan going on hunger strike on September 20

The refugees from Chechnya, who live in the temporary accommodation centre (TAC) "Promzhilbaza" in the city of Karabulak, Ingushetia, plan to go on hunger strike on September 20, as they said during their meeting with representatives of the united "Caucasian Forum". In total, 12 families want to start the protest.

Today, activists of the "Caucasian Forum" arrived in Karabulak to meet the refugees from the "Promzhilbaza", who expressed their intention to go on hunger strike.

"The demand of all the protesters is the same – 'Ramzan Kadyrov! Bring us all home!'," Kheda Saratova, the leader of the public organization "Objective", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to her story, all the protesters are residents of the Chechen Republic, who had left their homeland because of the start of the warfare. "They can't return home as their housing was lost, while the problem of receiving the compensations, which they had to be paid for restoring their houses in Chechnya is not addressed," said Kheda Saratova.

"All the demands are addressed to Chechnya. Today at the meeting 12 families expressed heir intention to go on hunger strike," said Taisa Isaeva, the head of the "Union of NGOs".

Khila Suleimanova has been living in "Promzhilbaza" for 18 years after she fled from Chechnya with other refugees during the war.

"I live in a room sized 3 to 4 meters, which is our bedroom, kitchen and bathroom at the same time, where we bathe and launder. The conditions are terrible, especially for families with small children. But we have nowhere to go – our houses had been destroyed; and we don't and won't have any alternatives," said the refugee from Chechnya.

Another refugee from Chechnya Eiza Dikaeva, a Category I invalid, asserts that she has no right to have any housing in Chechnya whatsoever.

"The problem is that our bureaucrats are strictly following the laws, which fail to consider each individual situation. My family returned to Chechnya from Kazakhstan in 1994; then, the war started – as you understand, buying a house was out of question them. I got married and gave birth to a son. In 1999, we went to Ingushetia, where we lived in different TACs, the last of them is the 'Promzhilbaza'. Several years ago I got into a road accident and had my leg amputated. Now I am disabled; besides, my husband left me. In order to get my disability pension in Ingushetia, some good people made a registration for me here; therefore, I automatically lost the right to have housing in Chechnya. They put me on the waiting list in Ingushetia," said Dikaeva.

So far, there are no comments of the authorities of Ingushetia and Chechnya in the context of the refugees' statements.