Russia Forcing Chechen Refugees Out of Camps, Rights Groups Say

Chechen refugees in southern Russia are being forced to exchange a miserable existence in tent camps for a life of equal deprivation but more fear and danger as part of a government campaign to empty the camps, human rights groups charged Tuesday.

With temperatures below freezing, the last families in the Iman camp near the Ingush town of Aki-Yurt left Tuesday. Authorities had threatened to cut off gas and electricity in the camp, forcing the 1,500 residents to leave for Chechnya, rights groups said.

“There is no doubt that what happened to the Iman camp was a forcible eviction. The people there simply did not have any other choice,” said Viskhan Basayev of Memorial, a human rights group in Nazran, Ingushetia. “The return of the refugees to Chechnya has been carried out according to a pure Soviet scenario -- it was what Soviet people sarcastically used to call ‘a forced voluntary’ return.”

Alexander Rostovtsev of the Interior Ministry’s Federal Migration Service, which is responsible for the refugees, insisted that they left voluntarily. But human rights groups said refugees were given food if they signed documents stating that their departure was voluntary.

Rights groups say Russia wants 20,000 Chechen refugees out of other camps by late December. According to the United Nations, 110,000 refugees are squatting or living in Ingushetia.

The removal of the refugees is part of Russia’s campaign to show the world that the Chechen war is over, said Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the Civic Assistance organization, who arrived in Moscow from Ingushetia on Friday.

“They want the world to think that the war in Chechnya is over and thousands of former refugees are swarming back to their homes. But there is nothing but lies behind these statements,” she said.

The siege of a Moscow theater in October by Chechen rebels who took more than 700 hostages raised doubts that the Chechen separatist resistance had been crushed.

Meanwhile, in Chechnya, rebels have continued their guerrilla attacks, which have claimed several lives each week, and bomb and mine explosions have been common. In August, rebels shot down a military helicopter, killing 119 Russian servicemen -- more than in any other incident in the Chechen war.

Russian forces have been strongly criticized by international human rights groups for their zachistki, or operations in which they “clean up” villages. They have been accused of looting and rape, and many of those they have arrested have never been seen again.

Human rights groups dispute Russian claims that Chechnya is safe and say refugees should not be pressured to return. Basayev said refugees from the Iman camp had squatted in a distillery and a derelict chicken farm, where conditions were appalling. “But going back to Grozny is even worse,” he said, referring to the Chechen capital.

Gannushkina said local officials intimidated refugees into leaving.

“They threatened to shut off gas or electricity supplies, they painted somber pictures of hungry children having to survive the winter in cold tents and totally unsanitary conditions, etc. They even threatened to bulldoze over the tents and dirt houses left in the camp,” she said. “No one wanted to go, and everyone was afraid. They know that people get killed in Chechnya on a regular basis.”

Danish authorities Tuesday rebuffed a Russian demand that they extradite Ahmed Zakayev, spokesman for Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov. The authorities said Russia did not provide sufficient evidence to extradite him.

Russia sought Zakayev’s extradition after the October hostage crisis, accusing him of terrorist acts committed between 1996 and 1999. Zakayev was released by Danish authorities Tuesday.

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Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.