16:22, 23 June 2005

Human rights groups give killed, missing figures

Russian human rights groups say more than 80 Chechnya residents have been abducted or missing this year.

"One hundred and forty-two people have been abducted in Chechnya in 2005, according to our information. Fifty-three of them have been released, five found killed, two are under investigation, and 82 are missing," Dmitrii Grushkin of the Human Rights Centre Memorial told journalists in Moscow today.

He said 89 Chechnya residents have been killed under various circumstances in Chechnya in 2005, according to the human rights advocates' information.

"Our monitoring embraces just 25-30% of Chechnya's territory. Other areas, including the mountains, remain inaccessible for our officers. We estimate the total number of crimes against civilians in Chechnya may be 3-4 times higher than the information available to us," Grushkin said, quoted by Interfax.

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