Russia Denies Crimes, and a Family Grieves

As Russian authorities Tuesday brushed off the mounting evidence that troops have executed dozens of civilians here in the Chechen capital in the past two weeks, allegations of more atrocities were emerging.

One of the latest is the story of Deshi Inderbiyeva, a 30-year-old Chechen woman who found the bodies of her two elder sisters, charred and unrecognizable, in a potato cellar in the yard of her mother’s ruined house in suburban Grozny last Wednesday.

She was able to identify them only through her eldest sister’s damaged eyeglasses and a scarf she had once given to her other sibling.

Allegations that Russian troops have committed war crimes in Chechnya are growing. The New York-based organization Human Rights Watch has collected evidence that 44 civilians were killed by Russian forces in the separatist republic after the Russians took control of Grozny early this month, and it is investigating allegations of dozens more killings of civilians in the capital since then.

The organization had already gathered evidence that 17 civilians were slaughtered when Russian soldiers ran amok in the village of Alkhan-Yurt, just south of Grozny, in December.

The Kremlin spokesman on the Chechen war, Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, repeated his view Tuesday that the allegations are a product of the Chechen propaganda machine, dismissing them as rumors.

Oleg P. Orlov, chairman of the influential Russian human rights group Memorial Society, said he is sure there will be no serious investigation of possible war crimes in Chechnya.

“It is high time international organizations got involved and sent their commissions to Chechnya,” he said. “The actions and demands of international organizations must be tough, resolute and quite clearly spelled out.

“If they don’t step in now,” he said, “they risk the emergence of a new Russia that will make the entire world shudder with dread and fear.”

Inderbiyeva, interviewed by The Times in Grozny on Friday, said she had come to the city two days before to search for her mother and two sisters, Shema, 36, and Shemani, 33, whom she had not seen since November. After finding her mother’s house in ruins, she went to her own house and discovered that it too had been destroyed.

In the basement of Inderbiyeva’s home, she found her 68-year-old mother, who began weeping when she saw her daughter. When Inderbiyeva asked where Shema and Shemani were, her mother shook her head repeatedly and said, “Dead.”

Inderbiyeva returned to her mother’s house to search. A gazebo in the yard had been burned down, exposing a small cellar for potatoes.

“I got down into the cellar and found two bodies,” she said. “The clothes and flesh on them were almost entirely burned, and I could see the bones. The faces were unrecognizable, but I found on one head what remained of the glasses. One of my sisters, Shema, wore glasses.

“In the corner of the cellar, I found the scarf I gave to my other sister, Shemani, long ago. I realized they were my sisters. I sat there for a long time looking at the bones and crying.”

When she returned to her own house, she heard her mother’s account of how it happened: On Jan. 10, Russian tanks arrived in their street, Zavety Ilyicha, located in the Staropromyslovsky district of northeastern Grozny.

Her daughters hid in the cellar under the gazebo, she said, while she hid in the house. She heard the tanks roll into their yard. She heard voices and peeked out the window, where she saw several soldiers near the cellar. Seconds later, she saw flames leap from the cellar. She crawled away from the window and hid under the bed.

Inderbiyeva went back to her mother’s house and gathered her sisters’ remains in two knotted bedsheets and carried them away for burial. She wanted to take them to Valerik, the family’s home village, but in order to get there she had to go through Ingushetia, a Russian republic neighboring Chechnya, because of blocked roads. When she couldn’t get back into Chechnya, she buried them Saturday in Ingushetia.

Human Rights Watch and Memorial Society are pressing for an international investigation of all the alleged killings of civilians in Chechnya. Human Rights Watch says it has carried out lengthy interviews with more than 20 people about the alleged Grozny atrocities, including witnesses, survivors and members of victims’ families. It has photographs of many of the bodies.

The group wrote to acting Russian President Vladimir V. Putin last week calling for a full investigation.

Special correspondent Nunayev reported from Grozny and Times staff writer Dixon from Moscow.