'Clean-up' in refugee camp

Law enforcement and security agencies launched a "clean-up" in the refugee camp in Yandare, Nazran district, Ingushetia, at about 8 a.m. this morning. Imran Ezhiev, chairman of the Chechen-Ingush regional office of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship (SRCF) who lives in the above-mentioned refugee camp himself, managed to get through to the editorial office at the SRCF office in Nizhny Novgorod and reported developments in the camp. However, the call was interrupted in several minutes, suddenly. This is what the SRCF press center said in its release today.

Ezhiev said the camp that is quartered in reequipped cow-sheds was blocked by a lot of armed officers of joint police units. These were the same units that had carried out the "clean-up" in the refugee camp in Altievo on July 23-24, 2004. Imran was just able to say, "They are making all of us stand against the walls. They are going to take our cell phones." After this, the call was interrupted. For the time being, Ezhiev's phone is disconnected.

Many of the staff at the press center for the SRCF office in the North Caucasus live in that very refugee camp. Around three hundred people live in this camp currently which is run by the SRCF. The majority of male residents had to leave it in late June when mass detentions of Chechen refugees started in Ingushetia.

Meanwhile, the editorial office learnt at 9.25 a.m. that the military had allowed Kilab Ezhiev, a technical assistant at the SRCF press center's office in Karabulak, Ingushetia, to leave the camp.