“Cleansing” of the village of Srednie Kurchali with arrests and beatings, an "operation" in residential areas of Grozny

September 18, 2001

***
A column of Russian troops blocked the village of Srednie Kurchali. The next day, a “cleansing operation” began here, during which the military removed all the men (up to 20 people) from the village. The names of some of those detained by Memorial Human Rights Center are known. These are members of the Muskhadzhiev family: Shamil-Khadzhi, Sheikh-Magomed, Ali and Umar, 45-year-old Umar Musaev and his 20-year-old son, Mairbek, Askhab Altemirov, Timur Atabaev, Akhmed Aydamirov, Supyan and Suliman Zakarayev, VakharSolta Tisaev, Khamzat Khazhriev , Idris Zakaraev and others.

All of them were released. But Suliman Zakaraev and Vakhar-Solta Tisaev returned home only on September 22. Apparently, they were kept for so long because of the beatings: the last of the named people had a wound on his head and his arm was seriously injured. According to local residents, the military twisted his fingers “in the opposite direction.”

***
In the morning, the corpses of two men were found in a pavilion on the territory of the central market of Grozny. Next to them were shell casings from a Makarov pistol. One of the killed, as it turned out, was a resident of the village of Alkhan-Churtsky by the name of Khadzhiev. He had documents for three children with him.

***
In the morning, the forces of the military commandant's office of the Leninsky district of Grozny, the VOVD and the 21st Sofrinskaya OBRON of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation carried out a “cleansing” in residential areas adjacent to hospital No. 9 in Grozny. District and city authorities were not informed about its beginning. Moreover, the military refused to allow civil administration officials hurrying to work through their cordons. As for the employees of the prosecutor's office and police officers from the permanent department of internal affairs, they were not involved in the “cleansing” operation.

During this operation, 24 people were taken to the VOVD building. Physical violence was not used against them, but Russian police tried to force one of the detainees through threats to confess to participating in terrorist activities. When he categorically refused to incriminate himself, he and other people were released a few hours later.


From the book “People Live Here”, Usam Baysaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006.

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