12:40, 5 June 2004

Refugees in Satsita camp receive ultimatum

Migration service officials accompanied by a group of police officers armed with automatic weapons came to the tent refugee camp Satsita situated on the outskirts of the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia. They demanded that camp inhabitants should sign papers certifying that they bind themselves to leave their tents by June 5. "Otherwise we will take away your men and you will never see them again," they said to the refugees. "And we will not stand upon ceremony with women either," added the law enforces.

The migration service officials emphasized that it was not interesting for them where exactly the refugees would move. The refugees are frightened very much, they are afraid of night arrests.

Thirty tents remain on the territory of the Satsita camp, which was home to thousands of refugees in former times.

Source: Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship