Pressures on IDPs to return to Chechnya and MSF operations within this backdrop
December 1999: Under Order no 110 the Federal Migration Service instructed the Regional Migration Services of Daghestan, Stavropol, Ingushetia and North Ossetia Alania, to suspend registration under form no 7 of all new IDP arrivals and to facilitate the return to their place of origin in Chechnya, or alternatively, to safe areas in Chechnya. (UNHCR report February 2003)
January 2000: The Ministry for Civil Defence and Emergencies of Ingushetia, issued an instruction according to which IDPs coming from regions under the control of Federal Authorities should be "deprived from all kind of allowances they were entitled to on the territory of their present accommodation" (UNHCR report February 2003)
April 2001: The Ingush territorial organ of the Ministry of Federal Affairs, Nationality and Migration Policy, suspended registration (under form no 7) of all new IDP arrivals. Without registration by the migration authorities, IDPs do not have access to government assistance, including accomodation in government managed camps and food.(UNHCR report February 2003)
December 2001: Presentation of the intersectional MSF survey on the precarious living conditions of the Chechen refugees in Ingushetia. MSF sections in Russia denounce the conditions of the worn out tents in the tented camps of Ingushetia.
Dismissal of President Aushev on the 28th December. Start of a deterioration of the operating conditions for humanitarian actors in Ingushetia.
January 2002: MSF presents the report "Strategy of Non Assistance"
Agreement is signed between MSF and Ingush Minister of Health on opening of TB hospital for IDPs in Ingushetia.
April 2002: 1st and 2nd round presidential elections in Ingushetia.
May 2002: MSF replaces 200 tents throughout Ingushetia.
Inauguration of the newly elected President Ziazikov.
New Minister of health suspends agreement with MSF. Though hospital is rehabilitated, it will never open.
Presentation of the governmental 20-point plan for the return of Chechen refugees to Chechnya signed between the Chechen administration, the Ingush government and the presidential plenipotentiary envoy in southern Russia, Kazantsev.
Increased presence of military forces in Ingushetia and with an increased number of incidents involving Chechen refugees in Ingushetia. At the end of May a unit of the federal army settles close to the Sleptsovskaia camps. When the unit arrived, soldiers entered the camps and frightened the residents by shooting in the air. Many people immediately left and hid in the fields and only returned the following day. At the entrance of Aki Yurt village and tent camp checkpoints were reinforced and became more permanent.
July 2002:Closure of Znamenskoe tented camps in northern Chechnya. Around 5000 former internal Chechen refugees from the tented camps of Znamenskoe were forced to relocate to newly erected temporary accommodations centres (TACs) in Grozny. Several assessments in the newly constructed temporary accommodation centres showed that the living conditions in the TACS are unacceptable and inferior to their previous conditions in Znamenskoe.
On July 10, 2002, the FSB advised to UNSECOORD that because of an imminent kidnapping threats no missions involving expatriates should be undertaken in Chechnya, till a review is done.
August 2002: Distribution of leaflets of the Russian Federation's Ministry of Interior in the tented camps in Ingushetia. The leaflets contained information from Chechen Prime Minister Ilyasov on the facilities available to those wishing to repatriate to Chechnya. The leaflet claimed that, for those wishing to return to Chechnya, food will be provided on a constant basis by the World Food Programme, and that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will provide non-food packages, monitor living conditions, and provide tents and construction materials where conditions are inadequate.
August 1st 2002, Migration officials inform all Chechen refugees of the Aki Yurt tent camp that the camp would be dismantled and all Chechen refugees would have to move to collective centre in Malgobek. Chechen refugees said they did not want to leave, they had gotten used to this tent camp and they had already lived there for two years.
Kidnapping of Arjan Erkel, the Head of Mission of MSF Switzerland on August 12 2002 in the capital of Dagestan, Makhachkala.
August 13 2002: Extension of the MSF suspension to the whole of the Northern Caucasus.
September 2002: Resumption of MSF activities in Ingushetia in the beginning on September 2002.
Federal officials from the migration services declare that Aki yurt tent camp will be closed by October.
Aki Yurt residents sign petition - During early September Chechen refugees of Aki Yurt tent camp issue petitions to ambassadors of European countries, the UN, the OSCE, PACE, towards the President and the people of Ingushetia, and towards Chechen refugees in other camps in Ingushetia claiming that they did not want to be moved out of the camp, to Chechnya or to other locations in Ingushetia.
Petition representatives taken for questioning - two female representatives and one male representative of the Chechen refugees who petitioned for non-relocation were taken to the Ingush MVD for questioning on Thursday September 19 and only released after several hours.
Visits by Migration and Emercom officials pressurising the refugees - throughout September officials visit Aki Yurt tent camp telling people to leave. Contradictory messages are given - there will be no forced displacement but the tent camp will be closed down. According to Chechen refugees, on one occasion, the head of Ingush Malgobek Migration service threatens to shoot a man in the head when expressing unwillingness to leave.
On Thursday September 19, the FSB and the Ingush MVD prevent demonstrations in the Aki Yurt tent camp. The camp was sealed off and journalists and representatives of humanitarian organisations were not allowed to go in. One MSFB medical team bus and a member of the coordination team managed to get in the camp without any problem. Activities of the humanitarian organisations CARE in the camp were hindered.
Incursion of a group of armed Chechen fighters into Ingushetia. This incident further fuelled arguments of the Ingush and Federal migration services and the military that the tented camps were posing a security threat to its surrounding areas. It also further speeded up the efforts to close the tent camps and reinforced already established screening methods of all movements in and out the tented camps.
Chechen refugees start to leave the tented camp of Aki Yurt. On September 22-23 2002 a representative of the migration services and Emergency Ministry representatives dismantled two tents in the tent camp located in Aki-Yurt village. According to the refugees, a family who lived in one of the dismantled tents, agreed to go to a spontaneous settlement in Malgobek as a result of propaganda.
However when the family arrived at the site and seen that the offered conditions were not better than those in the camp, they refused to leave the camp. But the migration service head in Malgobek Mr. Khashiev and the deputy head of the Ingush migration services, Akhmed Parchiev ordered their subordinates to remove the tent and leave the refugees' property at the place where a tent stood. Having been left without a roof, this family had to rent a room in a small shack in the vicinity of the tent camp.
UNHCR shelter experts concluded that the proposed sites for resettlement of Aki Yurt Chechen refugees were not suitable for humane habitation. Donors, who invested much in camp infrastructure, pointed out that they considered the conditions in the tented camps in Ingushetia as acceptable and therefore refused to fund temporary resettlement sites for Chechen refugees in Ingushetia. It became clear that nothing would be prepared neither by the government nor by the UN or western donors to host the Aki Yurt Chechen refugees neither in Ingushetia nor in Chechnya in alternative accommodations.
October 2002: Hostage crisis in the Nord-Ost theatre in October 2002, with MSF maintaining a presence at the theatre in order to help the hostages if needed, during the crisis and organising deliveries of medical supplies to hospitals in the direct aftermath of the crisis. Immediately after the theatre crisis, the pressure grew significantly on the Chechen refugees in the tented camps in Ingushetia. This pressure resulted in the open presence of more military around the camps and a refusal for humanitarian organisations to conduct tent replacements and a refusal to install the UNHCR box tents.
Bart Camp - representative of Chechen administration visits camp and tells people to leave before November 15th in order to receive place in Grozny. Those not returning would be moved out of Ingushetia anyway.
Warning given to MSF of possible kidnapping of MSF or ICRC workers after the 12th of November.
November 2002: The head of the federal migration services informs UNHCR in Moscow that all tent camps will be closed in Ingushetia by December 20.
Deterioration in the security situation in the Malgobek district. The Malgobek district declared out of bounds for the humanitarian community by UNSECOORD for about 10 days starting from November 15. Law enforcement agencies report that a remainder of an armed group involved in the Galashki fighting found shelter in the Malgobek district and that therefore special operations were under way in the district.
At the same time, this coincided with several reports of abductions and disappearances of Chechen refugees all over Ingushetia including in the Malgobek district and reports of the presence of armed officers belonging to the pro russian administration on the territory of the Malgobek district. So was a bus explosion in Malgobek city, that killed four people and injured nine more, prompted by an attempt by Chechen security officers to kidnap two of the passengers.
Abduction of two ICRC drivers on November 13 on the roady Grozny - Malgobek between Pobedinskoye and Goragorsk in Chechnya. They are released in the evening of November 17.
Bart Camp - when temperatures drop to - 20oC, the camp is left without gas and water for three weeks.
December 2002: UNHCR obtains approval from the Federal and Ingush Migration services for pre-positioning additional box-tents on alternative relocation sites selected by the authorities in Ingushetia. (UNHCR report February 2003)
Authorities closed the Iman camp in Aki-Yurt, which accommodated 1,700 refugees according to the DRC database and only 700 according to the Migration services database. Chechen refugees had been subjected during several months to intimidations, legal pressures, psychological pressures. People were transported into the wilderness of the private sector in Chechnya by trucks and buses provided by Emercom and Migration Services in the last days of November 2002.
The campaign culminated Sunday December 1st when Ingush policemen and an OMON detachment, which occupied a school belonging to an NGO, began to dismantle the tents of those refugees who had refused to leave. Only the 700 Chechen refugees registered with the federal migration services were offered financial incentives to resettle in the private sector in Chechnya as all temporary accommodation centres in Grozny were already occupied.
Closure of Aki Yurt tented camp by December 2 2002. Memorial described the events as a deportation in Stalinist tradition of Chechen refugees being forced into the wilderness of war torn Chechnya. UN reported that according to their initial figures around 40 % of the former Aki Yurt residents found shelter in spontaneous settlements or the private sector in Ingushetia.
On December 3 The federal representative of migration services Rostovtsev threatened that the MSF field team should dismantle the medical facility.
An aide to the Russian President Yastrizbimsky commented on December 4 2002 to the liquidation of the tented camps that there are "attempts to politicise the problem" of the return of Chechen refugees from Ingushetia and "to make it seem that it is solved by inhuman means". Igor Yunash, deputy head of the federal migration services, stated that Mashkadov's representatives are carrying out a propaganda campaign in the tent camps. They are paying money and trying not only to convince but also to
intimidate people in an effort to keep the tent camps open.
On December 11, The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has promised to suspend the resettlement of Chechen refugees from tent camps in Ingushetia back to Chechnya. Putin was speaking at a meeting in the Kremlin with members of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights. He said resettlement should stop until a specially set up body looks into the problem and comes up with solutions on how to ensure the rights of the refugees. After this statement pressure on the big tented camps in Ingushetia decreased.
January 2003: Nina Davidovitch released. (SeeMSF welcomes the release of Nina Davydovich )
MSF meets with President Ziazikov, where he gives verbal approval for the provision of alternative shelter by MSF.
Completion of 180 alternative shelter by MSF for people living in the tented camps that do not want to go back to Chechnya. Activities are coordinated primarily with the migration service as well as local services. On the 27th of January, rooms are declared illegal by Ingush government, following a new law whereby all construction must follow the same rules. However, the construction of rooms was finished before the new law. to this day, no families have been able to move into the rooms, nor has MSF been able to continue with the construction of other 1000 rooms. All provision of alternative shelter for Chechen refugees in Ingushetia is stopped.
Camp administration of camps Bella, Sputnik and Alina, announce that all families who paid for tents would have to go back to Grozny.
February 3:Meeting between President Ziazykov and MSF. The president gives authorization to build rooms in Ingushetia.
Ingush government orders the suspension of erection of temporary and / or movable shelter units (including UNHCR box tent) by aid agencies until it is determined whether such units meet the technical requirements under the local construction code. (UNHCR report February 2003)
March 2003 - 23 March: Referendum for new Chechen constitution carried out in Chechnya and in Ingushetia for Chechen families.
MSF receives letter from Procurator ordering demolition of rooms by the 26th of March.
April 2003: President Ziazikov and MSF meet again to discuss rooms. The president announces the creation of a commission to help solve the problem of alternative shelter for displaced.
May 2003: no progress with the commission created by the president.
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