Russia: Treatment of Ingush in North Ossetia (January 2000 - December 2000)

The International War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), a "London-based independent non-profit organisation supporting regional media and democratic change," contains in its 23 June 2000 issue of the Caucasus Reporting Service, the following article by Alexander Voronin, a correspondent for Moskovsky Komsomolets:

Tensions are rising on the border between Ingushetia and North Ossetia where Ingush refugees claim the Vladikavkaz authorities are refusing to let them return to their homes. More than 1,000 Ingush reportedly staged mass protest meetings in the Prigorodny region last week, demanding their "constitutional rights." They say Ossetian officials are deliberately preventing refugees from returning to the village of Chermen which they were forced to flee during the 1992war. The demonstrations come just weeks after the mutilated corpses of six Ossetians were found in the region, prompting speculation that extremists were attempting to trigger fresh fighting there.

The latest crisis flared after Ossetian police barred five Ingush families from entering Chermen on the grounds that "co-existence with their Ossetian neighbours was impossible". The families had lived together on a single street before the hostilities.

Prigorodny has a history of ethnic unrest and it was Ingushetia's territorial claims on the region that sparked the armed conflict of 1992.

More than 16,700 Ingush refugees have returned to North Ossetia in the last eight years but 30% of the republic's Ingush population has remained in exile. ...

The North Ossetian authorities had previously blamed "extremist groups" for

the brutal murder of six picnickers in the Prigorodny region last month. ...

Meanwhile, Taimuraz Kusov, the minister for nationalities in Vladikavkaz, denied there had been any protest meetings in Chermen. Talks between president Dazasokhov and Aushev in May had made considerable progress in resolving the conflict, said Kusov, with the Ossetian authorities objecting only to the "force repatriation of Ingush refugees." The minister explained, "There are places and streets in every settlement where peaceful co-existence is still impossible because they are inhabited by people who lost relatives during the dramatic days of autumn 1992. We should not insist on their co-existence."

The 1 September 2000 issue of the IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service contains the following article by Erik Batuev:

The 7,000 Ingush families marooned in Maiskoe's makeshift shanty-town have been living in limbo for the past eight years. ... The families were driven from their homes [eight years ago] in the Prigorodny region by ethnic Ossetians who disputed a Moscow edict giving the Ingush the right to settle there.

Any refugees attempting to return to Prigorodny in recent years have been subjected to vicious attacks from local residents whilst the Kremlin has stubbornly refused to intercede. Consequently, they remain trapped in Maiskoe – the last Ingush enclave in North Ossetia – or just across the border in Ingushetia.

Their enforced exile is unthinkably bleak. Most of the refugees have made homes for themselves in abandoned railway carriages on the outskirts of the settlement. The electricity supply is irregular and gas is non-existent. Others live in a flimsy tent-town, huddled under dilapidated electricity pylons. ... Some of the Ingush families have attempted to return to their homes, even without guarantees of security. But buses have been mobbed by stone-throwing crowds and newly rebuilt homes have been burnt down or destroyed by bomb attacks. ...

Before the war, 28 North Ossetian settlements were inhabited by Ingush families but refugees have returned to just three – villages which have always had an exclusively Ingush population. Here, too, life is hard. The Ingush find it almost impossible to get jobs and are subjected to regular document checks at Ossetian police posts. Until recently, they were forced to seek medical aid across the border in Ingushetia as Ossetian hospitals refused to treat them.

The Website of the Ingush government in Ingushetia contains the following 2 November 2000 article:

Exactly eight years ago, ethnic cleansing was carried out on the territory of North Ossetia as a result of which more than 60,000 ethnic Ingush people were forced out of the places they have lived since time immemorial – Prigorodnyy district and Vladikavkaz. ... Only 9,000 of the 60,000 deported Ingush have been able to return to their places of permanent residence during these eight years. Eight of the 16 villages in North Ossetia remain closed to those wishing to return, despite the corresponding documents signed at the level of federal bodies of state power. Those who have returned to the other villages live as though on reservations, deprived of basic constitutional rights to freedom of movement, choice of residence, education, employment and healthcare and they are practically hostages of the local authorities.

Ethnic Ingush citizens are scarcely represented at all in the local self-government bodies of North Ossetia and cannot find work where they live. By decision of the local authorities, their children are not allowed into schools to study with the children of other nationalities. A policy of segregation and ethnic discrimination, which the world community rejected long ago, is thus openly being conducted in the Republic of North Ossetia (Alania).

Organized crowds of ethnic Ossetian citizens, with the active participation of the police in North Ossetia and with the sanction of the republic's leadership, are blocking the roads by which the Ingush would return home and are stirring up anti-Ingush hysteria. The people organizing and taking part in these actions are well known and operate openly. Nevertheless, neither republican nor federal law-enforcement bodies take any measures to apply legal pressure to them.

The arbitrary treatment meted out to ethnic Ingush citizens in North Ossetia over several years on ethnic grounds, the reluctance to guarantee their security or to help those who have returned establish themselves allows us to conclude that this republic has totally left the constitutional field of the Russian Federation.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

References

Ingush Government Website [Magas, in Russian]. 2 November 2000. "Ingush Meeting Asks Russian President to Introduce Direct Rule." (BBC Summary 3 Nov. 2000/LEXIS)

Institute for War & Peace Reporting [London] (IWPR). 4 September 2000. Erik Batuev. "The Forgotten Refugees." [Accessed 5 Dec. 2000]

_____. 23 June 2000. Alexander Voronin. "Ossetians Turn Back Ingush Refugees." [Accessed 5 Dec. 2000]