Russians Seal Off City, Shell Chechen Civilians : Caucasus: Scores die as troops retake Gudermes from rebels. Escapees report being trapped for 11 days.

Stung by a separatist takeover, Russian forces have sealed off Chechnya’s second-largest city and shelled it indiscriminately, killing dozens of civilians and trapping hundreds in frigid, flu-infested basements with little food or water for 11 days, refugees and relief workers said Sunday.

The battle for Gudermes, which appears to have ended with a rebel retreat, was the heaviest fighting in Chechnya since Russian troops seized the republic’s capital, Grozny, from a separatist ruler last January.

At least 100 civilians and dozens of combatants were reported killed here in a revival of all-out combat in southern Russia.

Fighting started before dawnDec. 14 after about 700 Chechen rebels seized the city commandant’s headquarters, the rail station and a hospital. They came under artillery fire that night, beat back a Russian tank assault 48 hours later and held 130 Russian Interior Ministry troops captive at the rail depot until Saturday.

The Russian army ringed the city of 60,000 people with troops and armor, forcing thousands to struggle to get out and preventing relief workers from getting in. Corpses were hoisted onto rooftops to keep the dogs away.

Some who fled Gudermes blamed the rebels for starting the fight and for looting their homes. But the dozens of refugees interviewed over the weekend agreed that the Russians caused most of the casualties and destroyed entire neighborhoods where there was no combat.

“The Russians were firing their artillery from a hill by the TV tower, shooting into every street,” said Bukhari Muskhanov, 43, who hid in a basement with his family. “After two days, the children got sick and couldn’t stop coughing, but every time we tried to leave, the shooting became more intense.”

On the fifth night, the family emerged from underground to make their escape and found the rest of the house was gone except for parts of two walls. “I looked around and saw entire blocks of houses obliterated,” Muskhanov said.

When the shooting started, Yusup Dovletukayev’s mother told him it was only a training exercise. “They’re not really firing at people,” she lied, trying to calm him.

Later the 13-year-old boy learned the truth when his parents panicked, packed a suitcase and ran into the street. They were killed before his eyes by gunfire from the Russian hilltop.

In three villages where they found refuge, others caught in the fighting gave dramatic accounts of escape. They slipped out at night, camouflaged against the snow in white bedsheets, crawled through city streets and across fields, then fled through a forest to safety, diving to the ground when Russian flares lit the skies.

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Women covered their babies’ mouths to keep the silence. Men dragged the wounded and disabled on blankets or sleds. Family groups moved together, led by children who knew the way.

“We weren’t told we could not leave, but whenever we tried, the Russians shot at us,” said Zolpa Muskhardzhiyeva, 45.

Manuel Bessler, head of the International Red Cross mission in Chechnya, said the Russians did prohibit many people from leaving and turned down his repeated requests for a three-hour cease-fire to evacuate the wounded and deliver food, clothing, medicine and blankets to the city.

Bessler said the rebels were willing to halt their fire, but the Russian commander told him: “It’s impossible from a military point of view to make a cease-fire. We’re in the middle of a war.”

Gudermes remained sealed Sunday, even after Russian forces reported driving the last rebels out. A Russian captain manning a checkpoint at the edge of town said troops were clearing rebel mines from streets and public buildings.

The blockade was the tightest since the Russian army’s siege of the Chechen town of Samashki last April, when troops found few rebel forces but summarily killed 94 civilians, according to international human rights monitors.

In Gudermes, there were also reports of Russian atrocities. Mayor Ramzan Vatsayev said Russian soldiers tossed grenades into basements sheltering civilians. A farmer, Salambek Abubakharov, said he had heard of three such incidents. Neither man offered firsthand accounts.

At the very least, the Russian assault was a case of brutal overkill, resembling the capture of Grozny last winter when three weeks of Russian bombing and artillery strikes killed more than 10,000 civilians to drive away a few thousand separatists.

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Rebel forces are still intact and loyal to Gen. Dzhokar M. Dudayev, the separatist president forced from office in January. After a lull following a July peace accord that never took hold, they went on the offensive to protest the Kremlin’s plans to have its puppet Chechen leader, Doku Zavgayev, elected by popular vote.

With four days of balloting set to start Dec. 14, the rebels chose Gudermes as the target of their offensive by sending spies posing as election organizers to ask how many soldiers needed ballots. The answer revealed the city’s relatively light defenses.

Zavgayev was declared elected with 95% of the vote throughout Chechnya, but the rebels won a propaganda victory by forcing the Russians to behave so brutally here.

“We just want the Russians to leave us alone,” said Svetlana Veli, 47, deputy principal of Gudermes’ high school. “This is our second winter of running for cover, from one basement to another. How long will it go on?”