from the "Memorial" Human Rights Center's office in Nazran
"Cleansing Operation" in the Village of Alleroy
August 15th - 24th, 2001
For nine days, the federal forces have been blockading the village of Alleroy in the Kurchaloevskiy district, Chechnya, and no-one is allowed to leave the village.
In the village, there an utter "cleansing operation" is being carried out. The official explanation for this is allegedly that Aslan Maskhadov is in the village. However, according to those inhabitants of Alleroy who nanaged to get out of the village, Maskhadov is not there and never was.
In the meantime, in Alleroy people begin to starve. The federal servicemen pillaged the food provisions in shops, on the markets, in homes.
The "cleansing operation" is accompanied by looting, drunk burglaries, arsons. At the time being, at least a dozen private homes have been set on fire.
In the course of "filtration", the servicemen detain the male population from the age of 13. The building of the middle school is used as a detention centre. The "filtration" is accompanied by beatings and torture. The detentions seemingly are carried out arbitrarily: many people, who already had passed the "filtration" and had been released, were again detained by soldiers in the street and taken to the school building. The detainee Alimzhan Daudov was beaten up and then photographed with a machine gun around his neck. We have information that 54 out of the detainees are kept in pits at the outskirts of the village. Another 35 detainees have been taken to the commandant's office of the Kurchaloevskiy disitrict, one of them is Kharon Tataev, born 1965.
In Alleroy, 9 people have been shot.
Apart from this, on the first day of the "cleansing operation", a 17-years-old shepherd from the neighbouring village of Tsentoroy was shot. His body bearing bullet wounds was found on 21st of August and handed over to the inhabitants of Tsentoroy. According to the media, on the 23rd of August, a spontaneous rally took place in the village of Tsentoroy.
V. Chernov, the procurator of Chechnya, said that the murderer of the young man has been detained and that he confessed being guilty of the crime.
At the same time, A. Kadyrov said that 3 soldiers had been detained. He also says that there are dozens of complaints of victims.
Meanwhile, the blockading and "cleansing" of
the village of Alleroy continues.