Russian Federation: What justice for Chechnya’s disappeared?

The Russian non-governmental organization (NGO) Memorial has logged over 2,000 individual cases of enforced disappearances and abductions in Chechnya. Its own research is conducted in one-third of the territory of the Chechen Republic, and therefore does not represent the full extent of the violations. Memorial has estimated that in fact, between 3,000 and 5,000 men, women and children have gone missing in the Chechen Republic following what they term as abductions, arbitrary arrests and detentions since 1999. In the majority of those cases, state agents were allegedly responsible. Others estimate the figure as even higher.

The pervading atmosphere of fear in the region has led to people being increasingly reluctant to come forward, with many families preferring to use unofficial channels to secure the return of their relatives. As a result enforced disappearances and abductions are under-reported. While the reported number of enforced disappearances and abductions has decreased over the past years, such incidents are continuing to take place in Chechnya today.

Russian and Chechen officials have to some extent recognized the scale and gravity of the problem. As of 1 March 2007, up to 2,800 persons were listed as abducted, disappeared and missing in Chechnya, according to the Ombudsperson for Human Rights of the Chechen Republic, Nurdi Nukhazhiev. As of April 2005, the prosecutor’s office in Chechnya had opened 1,814 criminal cases into the enforced disappearance or abduction of 2,540 people in Chechnya.