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DATE=1/18/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=UNHCR / CHECHNYA (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-258171
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO:  The United Nations refugee agency, U-N-H-C-R, 
has expressed alarm at Russia's intensified bombing of 
the Chechen capital, Grozny.  Lisa Schlein in Geneva 
reports the agency says it is worried about the fate 
of the city's civilian population.
TEXT:  The U-N refugee agency says almost  no  one is 
leaving Grozny.  U-N-H-C-R spokesman Kris Janowski 
says all escape routes out of the city have been cut 
off.  He says the refugee agency is extremely 
concerned about the fate of the city's civilian 
population, which he describes as very grim.
The Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, reports that 
Russian troops have broken through rebel lines and 
reached the center of Grozny.  The city has been under 
heavy, sustained artillery and aerial bombardment for 
the past day and night.
Mr. Janowski says  no  one knows how many civilians 
remain in Grozny.  Official Russian figures put their 
numbers at 12-thousand.  But other sources say as many 
as 40-thousand civilians are trapped in cold, dank 
cellars with little or  no  food.
Mr. Janowski says there is little humanitarian aid 
agencies can do to help these people.  He says the U-N 
cannot send its workers into Grozny because it is a 
battlefield.
            /// JANOWSKI ACT ///
      We think that the situation in Grozny must by 
      now be quite tragic and quite dramatic.  But in 
      a humanitarian way, we are powerless in terms of 
      helping the Chechens who are trapped inside of 
      Grozny.  It's one of the situations where 
      humanitarian agencies are basically incapable of 
      helping these people.  So they are stuck there 
      without any humanitarian aid and we don't even 
      know what's happening with them.
            /// END ACT ///
Mr. Janowski says relatively few people are crossing 
the border between Chechnya and the neighboring 
Republic of Ingushetia.  He says approximately three-
hundred people a day are crossing in both directions.  
This is down from a high last week of more than 15-
hundred crossings a day.
He attributes the slowdown to intensified fighting in 
Chechnya and also to confusion at the border resulting 
from a Russian retreat on a policy it issued last 
week.  At that time, the Russian military said boys 
and men between the ages of 10 and 60 would  not  be 
allowed to leave or enter Chechnya.
Under international pressure, Russia rescinded that 
policy.  However, Mr. Janowski says Russian border 
guards are conducting thorough body searches of all 
boys and men. (Signed)
NEB/LS/JWH/ENE/JP
18-Jan-2000 10:27 AM EDT (18-Jan-2000 1527 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.