Human rights defenders associate mass grave in Grozny with extrajudicial executions

During the two Chechen military campaigns, extrajudicial executions took place throughout Grozny, so the remains found on the outskirts of the city might belong to the victims of those executions, human rights defenders Oleg Orlov and Alexander Cherkasov suggested.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that the remains of at least 10 people were found on the outskirts of Grozny. In the video reporting about the discovery, authors suggested that the remains belonged to the people killed during the Chechen military campaigns.

On his page on the social media outlet “VKontakte”, Ombudsman of Chechnya Mansur Soltaev announced that the information reporting that the burial was made during the years of the Chechen military campaigns was unreliable. “According to the archaeologists’ version, ... this is one of the old cemeteries from around the 18th century,” the Ombudsman of Chechnya noted.

Oleg Orlov, the co-chair of the Human Rights Protection Centre “Memorial”, emphasized that during the both Chechen military campaigns, extrajudicial executions took place throughout Grozny. According to the human rights defender, burials of war victims are periodically found in Chechnya, including those who died from extrajudicial executions.

“The bodies of tortured and killed people were thrown into cemeteries. Sometimes residents themselves found unidentified bodies and buried them in their cemeteries,” Oleg Orlov said.

During the second Chechen military campaign, Russian military units were stationed in the area, so the dead were victims of extrajudicial executions, believes Alexander Cherkasov, a member of the board of the Human Rights Protection Centre “Memorial”.

In 2019, on the occasion of the Day of the Missing, local residents complained that the search for the remains of the people who disappeared during the military campaigns in Chechnya was going on too slow.

In 2008, a mass grave containing the remains of six persons was discovered on the outskirts of Gudermes. The deceased were not identified and the dates of their deaths were unknown.

In June 2008, a mass grave dating back to the 1995 hostilities was found in Chechnya, reported Nurdi Nukhazhiev, then Ombudsman of Chechnya.

In December 2016, the remains of 109 people, presumably killed during the first military campaign, were brought to Chechnya from Rostov-on-Don. The victims were buried in two mass graves.