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Northern Caucasus: Preserving a measure of humanity in the midst of conflict
06-07-2005 Photo gallery
In this region, and particularly in Chechnya, the ICRC is doing its utmost to provide vitally needed assistance and protection for a population hard hit by over 10 years of conflict.
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Since 2004 security conditions have worsened throughout the northern Caucasus. In Chechnya, President Akhmad Kadirov and the separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov both died in violent circumstances. Clashes place a heavy burden on the inhabitants, and everyday life is punctuated by arrests, disappearances and hostage-taking. The ICRC intends to pursue its protection and assistance activities in the region for civilians. However, the lack of security is hindering this strictly humanitarian work.
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In September 2004 the ICRC had to interrupt its visits to places of detention in Chechnya because its delegates could no longer work in accordance with the standard procedures it uses all over the world, which include unimpeded access to all places of detention and all detainees, private interviews with detainees and the possibility of repeating visits as frequently as deemed necessary. Negotiations with the Russian authorities have yet to yield satisfactory results, but dialogue is continuing.
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Organizing the exchange of such messages and visits for the families of detainees are ways of helping separated family members to restore and maintain contact with one another. Although no exact figures are available on the number of people who have gone missing in Chechnya, disappearances are undeniably taking place. The ICRC has already made its concerns known to the competent authorities and intends to pursue its dialogue with them so that the families will receive the answers to which they are entitled. Among those missing is Usman Saidaliev, a Chechen employee of the ICRC, who has not been heard from since August 2003.
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Many people injured by mines or by other types of explosive weapons are awaiting treatment. The limb-fitting centre is serving over 1,000 patients, providing them with physical rehabilitation and supplying orthopaedic appliances, but demand is still greater than can be met. In addition to boosting the centre’s capacity and the technical expertise of its staff, the ICRC is expanding its information campaigns on the dangers of mines and explosive remnants of war in a number of communities at risk.
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These lethal devices infest many places that people commonly go to and – what is worse – their presence is often not indicated. In cooperation with the Russian Red Cross Society, the ICRC is setting up secure playgrounds in Chechnya. All children, whether resident or displaced by the conflict, can play in them without risking their lives.
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The blood bank, serving all of Chechnya, was restored to service in 2003 by the ICRC, which supplied equipment and trained laboratory technicians. All donated blood is tested with a centrifuge. The ICRC is also supporting analysis laboratories in ten hospitals. The aim is to ensure that the collected blood and products derived from it can be safely used.Boris Heger
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Access to quality health care remains especially difficult in Chechnya. That is why, every month, the ICRC supplies the main medical facilities in the republic with medicines, basic consumable goods and, when needed, surgical equipment. The ICRC is training staff in techniques of war surgery and maintains stocks of emergency medical supplies for use in the northern Caucasus sufficient to treat up to 1,000 wounded people. Sophisticated devices such as respirators, monitors and electrocardiographs have been provided. Specialists in the repair of medical equipment, paid by the ICRC, take care of equipment maintenance.
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In the northern Caucasus, 250 nurses provide regular care for 2,500 mobility-impaired elderly people without resources. The ICRC is funding the programme and also providing food aid. Over 800 of the beneficiaries live in Chechnya.
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Some 50,000 residents and displaced people in Chechnya receive this kind of aid. The neediest people lack even the most essential wares, including hygiene items, mattresses, bedsheets, blankets, candles, buckets and shoes. Almost 18,500 children from the poorest families receiving aid will be given clothing and footwear in September and winter jackets in December.
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This woman received fish-smoking machines from the ICRC enabling her to start a small business and support her family. Some 100 needy Chechen households such as hers were selected on the basis of their capacity to carry out income-generating or food-producing projects to receive items as varied as cows, goats, ovens, sewing machines, and freezers with which to make ice cream – whatever means of achieving economic survival best suited each person’s skills. This programme helps the beneficiaries to resume an active role in society and thereby regain pride and dignity.
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The ICRC is helping nearly 25,000 people displaced from Chechnya who are living in Ingushetia in very precarious conditions. After the authorities closed the camps they had been living in over recent years, the displaced people took refuge in collective centres or private residences. It would be risky for them to return to Chechnya because of the lack of security and the shortage of available housing. The ICRC is insisting to the authorities that any return must take place in acceptable security conditions and on a voluntary basis.
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An ICRC employee and a local official talking with each other in front of ICRC-built drinking-water tanks serving a village playing host to many people displaced from Chechnya. The tanks are connected to the mains system, which was extended under 3,200 metres of streets by municipal water workers under ICRC supervision. Thanks to this project, the villagers and displaced people no longer have to depend on trucked-in water supplies.
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Nearly two million pupils in seven countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States take part each year in an ICRC-designed and supported programme introducing the basic principles of humanitarian law. The programme is set to begin in Chechnya in September 2005. As the various education ministries have successfully incorporated the programme in the school curriculum, the ICRC will end its support in 2007. Law schools throughout Russia, spurred on by the ICRC, have made international humanitarian law a compulsory subject.
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Since 1994, the ICRC and the Russian defence and interior ministries have cooperated to incorporate the basic rules of international humanitarian law and human rights law into the training of troops, many of which will serve in the northern Caucasus. The regular courses given for senior officers and the development of programmes on relations between the police and the general public are encouraging signs. Nevertheless, the armed forces in the field need to make significant progress in practical terms upholding the principles protecting people who are not, or are no longer, taking part in hostilities.
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