Chechen residents protest against postponement of identification of human remains from mass grave

The mass grave of 109 victims of the hostilities, buried on December 31 at the cemetery near Grozny, has become a place of pilgrimage for relatives of the people who disappeared during the First Chechen War. The people still cannot obtain information about their relatives.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 31, the remains of 109 people, presumably killed during the first military campaign in the territory of Chechnya, were transported from Rostov to the republic. The remains of the victims were buried in two mass graves at the cemetery opened several years ago between the villages of Elevator and Pobedinskoe of the Grozny District of the ChechenRepublic.

Every day, residents of different regions of Chechnya come to the cemetery. They search for their relatives disappeared and kidnapped during the war.

"We visited the cemetery yesterday, since we thought there would be lists of the buried people. Instead, at the entrance we saw the announcement. According to it, we should contact the Muftiate with DNA samples, not earlier than after the New Year holidays," said Khasan, a local resident.

Many residents of Chechnya are unhappy with the actions of the authorities and the religious figures in the situation.

"In any country, transportation of more than 100 human remains to a region would become a pretext for declaring national mourning and grief. And at our place, religious figures and officials only managed to use a tractor to dig a trench, put the human remains there, make a mound, and arrange a prayer for the deceased people. Then, the religious figures and officials went to celebrate the New Year holiday. It's just an act of cynicism demonstration of complete indifference and inhumanity," believes Musa, a member of a Chechen NGO.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.