Locals threaten Chechen refugees with pogroms in Ingushetia

Appeals to organize pogroms were heard in the village on Yandare, Ingushetia's Nazran district, on June 22, during funerals of people who fell victims to the developments of the night of June 21-22. Some people, including a village dean, called upon their fellow-villages to raid the Chechen refugee camp situated in this village on the territory of the Nazran Agricultural Technical School.

Most of the villagers did not respond to these appeals, and they have not entailed any practical steps so far.

Imran Ezhiev, chairman of the regional branch of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship and an inhabitant of the above-mentioned camp, commented on the situation with pogrom sentiments: "I can rate appeals to organize pogroms only as a deliberate provocation, which can lead to a catastrophe. In my opinion, these sentiments are being roused by those who hold interest in escalating the conflict to the territory of Ingushetia and giving the interethnic tint to it. Many people hold interest in such a course of developments, and above all the corrupted army generals, many of whom rise very rapidly and get serious profits using the blood of civilian people and their colleagues. Besides, Chechnya has already been sacked to a great extent, and the market of illegal oil production has been shared. And Ingushetia is a "tidbit". The provocateurs, waging the pogrom campaign by somebody's order, are not clever men. And the matter is not even that, according to many eye-witnesses, the majority of the people who attacked state offices were ethnic Ingushetians and any confrontation on the basis of nationality is out of the question. The matter is that these people do not understand that if they sow chaos in the republic, they will inevitably become its victims soon."