Chechnya rejected a special lab for remains identification

The Ministry of Health of Russia has denied the proposal of Chechen leaders to set up in the republic s special laboratory for genetic examination of unidentified bodies.

"The heads of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia have rejected the request of our authorities to open in the republic a laboratory for genetic examination of unidentified bodies. The Ministry argued that the republic lacks respective specialists; therefore, there are no guarantees that the examination results will be reliable. In our opinion, these arguments are far-fetched, because specialists of any due level can be trained," the Ministry of Health of Chechnya has stated.

Representatives of local human rights organizations have also extremely negatively treated the refusal of the Russian Ministry to set up a special laboratory in the republic. "Dozens of thousands persons were murdered and disappeared during the two military campaigns in the territory of Chechnya," Aslambek Apaev, expert of the Moscow Helsinki Group for Northern Caucasus, said in this context. "From time to time, human remains are found in different regions of the republic, and the cases, when victims' personalities were established, are pretty few."

Earlier, Ombudsman in the Chechen Republic Nurdi Nukhazhiev also severely criticised the refusal of the federal centre to set up a special laboratory for genetic examination of human remains in the Chechen Republic. In Mr Nukhazhiev's opinion, the refusal to set up the lab is backed up by power agencies afraid that their war crimes against peaceful residents could become known to the public. He has treated the arguments of the Russia's Ministry of Health as "ridiculous and immoral."