HRC "Memorial" reports kidnapping of four persons in Chechnya

Four young people have been kidnapped from the village of Gekhi in the Urus-Martan District of Chechnya, local residents told human rights defenders.

The villagers, Movsar Vakhaev, Abdulla Zairaev, Zelimkhan Kulaev and Akhmed Sataev were taken away by some people in two cars, one of which looked like a taxi.

According to fellow villagers, at around 10 p.m. Moscow time on February 5, the unknown people, who had arrived in the village, pushed Vakhaev, Kulaev, Sataev and Zairaev into the cars and drove away to some unknown destination. Relatives of the young men turned to the police; however, now, 24 hours after the kidnapping the young men's fate remains unknown, says the statement posted on the website of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

The villagers turned to human rights defenders on February 6. Witnesses managed to video the kidnapping of two young people, Zairaev and Vakhaev.

The kidnapping video from Gekhi has not been posted anywhere yet. "Those who made it are afraid to post it," the "Mediazona" quotes Oleg Orlov, the head of the "Hot Spots" programme at the HRC "Memorial", as saying.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 6, 2020 at 10:05 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.