Today, human rights activists to meet with Chechen President Alu Alkhanov

Today, after the completion of the picket of protest in Grozny against the kidnapping of Bulat Chilaev, employee of the "Civil Assistance" committee, which, as already has been reported by the "Caucasian Knot," is to be held from 2 to 3 p.m. on the Akhmad-Khadji Kadyrov square in the Chechen capital, a meeting of human rights activists with Chechen President Alu Alkhanov will take place.

During the meeting with the president, the human rights activists intend to discuss the problem of "disappearances" in Chechnya, the situation with the unknown mass disease, the so-called "pseudo-asthma," in the Shelkovsk district of the republic, the situation of refuges and the prospects for cooperation between human rights organizations and the authorities of Chechnya. This has been reported to the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" over the telephone from Nazran (Ingushetia) by Svetlana Gannushkina, chairperson of the "Civil Assistance" committee for assistance to refugees, member of Council on facilitation of civil society development and human rights under the RF President, who specially came from Moscow to take part in the picket and the meeting with Alkhanov.

Gannushkina intends to ask the Chechen president to support her initiative on the formation of a commission to clarify the causes of the mass disease among children in the Shelkovsk district. "I should like to propose the formation of an international commission consisting of known toxicologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, etc., so that the sick children can undergo comprehensive medical examination. If the authorities agree we shall negotiate with western experts their participation in the commission," says Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the "Migration and Law" program of the "Memorial" human rights centre.

At the end of the last year, cases of unknown mass disease among schoolchildren of several settlements in the Shelkovsk district (north of Chechnya) were registered. The symptoms of the disease were identical: suffocation, weakness, fever, headache, numbness of limbs, hysterics and a fright of death. About 90 persons were hospitalized, mainly young girls.

The local residents thought (and still think) that their children had become victims of chemical warfare agents of neuroparalytic effect. Meanwhile, doctors, including experts from Moscow, insist that the mass disease among schoolchildren in Chechnya is of psychological origin and is connected with durable stress. In their opinion, "a pseudo-asthmatic syndrome of psychogenic nature" takes place there.

The sick children were taken for treatment to clinics of Stavropol and Moscow, but after the course of rehabilitation their state of health deteriorated again. According to a resident of the Shelkovsk district of Chechnya, the "treatment process" of the sick children is limited to administering various medicaments containing vitamins.