DATE=10/11/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA / CHECHEN REFUGEES
NUMBER=5-44469
BYLINE=EVE CONANT
DATELINE=NAZRAN, INGUSHETIA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Regional leaders in the Caucasus area say more
than 150-thousand refugees have fled air strikes
against Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya.
Officials in neighboring Ingushetia say they cannot
cope with the growing number of displaced peoples and
are calling on international aid organizations for
assistance. Many refugees say conditions are so poor
in the impoverished republic that they will be forced
to return to Chechnya. V-O-A correspondent Eve Conant
has just returned from Ingushetia and files this
report.
TEXT:
/// SOUNDS OF CROWD AT TRAIN - FADE UNDER
///
A small crowd of refugees tries to board an abandoned
train. The exhausted men and women push and shove
each other to get a compartment or at least a bed in
one of the carriages. There is little more the Ingush
government can offer them -- there is nowhere else to
stay.
/// WOMAN TALKING / CRYING - FADE UNDER
///
A woman carrying her invalid daughter struggles to
climb onto the train. Her only possession is a
plastic bag full of documents -- her passport, her
registration permits, and the death certificate of her
husband who was killed the last time Russian forces
bombed Chechnya more than three years ago.
She says she would rather sleep on the train than in
one of Ingushetia's refugee camps where there is
little food, no running water and no guarantee that
she will get a tent over her head or a dry spot of
land to sleep on.
/// MAN SHOUTING AT BREAD LINE - FADE
UNDER ///
In this camp, just inside the Chechen border, a man
screams to the crowd below his truck to keep order as
he hands out loaves of bread.
Whether along the border, or deeper into Ingushetia,
there is no space for the desperate newcomers.
Federal legislation makes it nearly impossible for
most of the refugees to travel deeper into Russia,
leaving many of them feeling trapped between the bombs
and a poor republic that cannot help them.
Ingushetia's population is just over 300-thousand.
And with at least 150-thousand refugees now seeking
shelter, Ingush president Ruslan Aushev tells V-O-A
his republic simply cannot cope.
/// AUSHEV ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER
///
He says the problem is turning into a humanitarian
catastrophe, with one-half of Ingushetia's population
now consisting of refugees and tens of thousands more
expected.
Local hospitals also are suffering from the influx.
Doctor Xhalide Zyanariev (`Ha'-li-de `Zya'-nah-ree-ev)
says that although Russian forces claim to be
targeting terrorists in Chechnya, each day more
wounded civilians come to his door.
/// ZYANARIEV ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE
UNDER ///
Doctor Zyanariev says that for the past two weeks, he
has treated people wounded by shell fragments, people
with damaged arteries and bones, people hit by bombs.
But despite the dangers, many cars can be seen driving
along the one dusty road back into Chechnya.
An elderly man, Dydy Xhalytov, (Doo-`Duh' `Khal'-ee-
tof) is returning to his home and to a war he says he
neither understands nor supports. He stops his car
to explain why he refuses to join the growing ranks of
refugees in Ingushetia.
/// XHALYTOV ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER
///
Mr. Xhalytov says it is better to die at home in
Chechnya than to die of hunger in Ingushetia. He
says, "You see what it is like, we are living like
gypsies. No one is helping us and no one wants us."
(Signed)
NEB/EC/JWH/JP
11-Oct-1999 11:29 AM EDT (11-Oct-1999 1529 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
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