10:15, 11 August 2017

Chechen mothers appeal for help in search for their disappeared sons

Women in Chechnya. Photo by Magomed Magomedov for "Caucasian Knot"

Ten women from Chechnya have prepared a collective appeal to rights defenders in Europe with a request to help in search for their sons. The appeal lists the names of young people who allegedly fell victim to extrajudicial execution.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that according to the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta", on January 26, in Chechnya, at least 27 people detained for suspicion of involvement in an attack on policemen in Grozny were executed.

The mothers' appeal was published by the portal "Kavkaz.Realii". The appeal contains a request for assistance in search for ten people kidnapped at various periods of time since December 2016 and whose fate is still unknown.

The authors of the appeal note that complaints filed to various instances of Chechnya have not yielded any results.

According to the "Novaya Gazeta", earlier, 13 residents of Chechnya signed a request to find their sons taken away from home in the period from December 17, 2016, to January 15, 2017. Then the people who signed the request were forced to sign statements that their sons "went to war in Syria and that they had no claims to the Chechen police."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.