Life among Grozny's ruins

One of the few bright spots is the State Oil Institute, which is preparing some 300 students in hopes that Chechnya's once-booming oil industry might one day be restored. But after a largely upbeat interview, Vice-Rector Sharpudi Zaurbekov, glancing nervously at Russian security officers in the room, says: "The biggest problem here is that our students keep getting detained at blokposti when they travel to and from school. (The Russians) say they are suspected of rebel activity. I have to go and intervene personally each time." This has happened about 15 times in the past year, he says, adding:, "Thank God none of our students has disappeared permanently."

The issue of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of missing people is the most sensitive of all. Russian military minders, citing security concerns, forcibly prevented journalists from making contact with about 20 elderly Chechen women who attempted to reach them, bearing portraits of sons and husbands who have disappeared. One of the women, Yakhita Bakriyeva, later slipped past the minders, saying she wanted the world to know about her cousin, Umar Ozdomirov, a member of the renowned Vainakh Chechen folk dancing troupe. "They took him at the blokpost near Grozny's central market last July," she said. "We've appealed to the police, the military procurator, the Red Cross, to everyone we can think of, but there is still no information about him. We are beside ourselves with anxiety for him."

Colonel Shabanov, while admitting that "some violations" of the law may occur at blokposti, says most of the 1,630 official complaints lodged by Chechen families with military prosecutors are "fictitious." He alleges the women protesters were paid rebel agents. "We have evidence that these cases (of missing people) are mostly bandits who have died fighting our forces, and their families later claim they were taken by the federals," he says.

The Russians are now planning to bring back tens of thousands of refugees who fled Grozny over the past three years to the relative safety of UN-supplied camps in neighboring Ingushetia. Ten "temporary settlement centers" are being set up in Grozny for them, although the human rights group Memorial has reported that only half are so far habitable. One, a seemingly well-heated and adequately protected former kindergarten, houses about 500 people removed from a refugee camp at Znamenskoye, in northern Chechnya, last June. "It's possible to live here, but we would rather have stayed in Znamenskoye, where it was safe, " says Nina Abzailova. "But they began tearing down the tents, and everyone had to leave."

President Vladimir Putin has pledged that refugees will not be forced to return. Russian officials here repeat those assurances, but there is also a hard edge to their statements. "It's time to liquidate those rebel rest-houses in Ingushetia," says Shabanov.

Savdat Kalimuliyeva, another resident at the former kindergarten in central Grozny, fears for her three children. "Every night there is shooting and bombing all around. We cannot sleep, we just huddle together in fear. I am terrified for my 16-year old son. What if they take him?"

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