GfbV warns of danger of war in Ingushetia

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) is warning of the increasing danger of war in Ingushetia. Following the attack on Junus-Bek Yevkurov, the President of the Russian constituent* *republic, on Monday morning near Nasran the human rights organisation explained the background to the bloody attack: "Ingushetian fighters are seeking out and shooting high-ranking politicians and the Ingushetian security service is reacting to this with extreme brutality and taking no regard of civilians. So the violence which has been escalating for months is being aggravated by the security forces and there is no prospect of a quietening of this tense situation."

Examples of the excessive use of violence were given by the internationally renowned Chechnyan human rights worker Zainap Gashayeva in a telephone report to the GfbV consultant for the states of the Russian Federation, Sarah Reinke: "Two months ago the house of the Dachilgiev in Ingushetia was fired at. Several fighters had hidden there. They fled, but the security forces went on shooting. Women and children had to watch their house being destroyed." The situation in Ingushetia is reminiscent of Chechnya before the war broke out. There were provocations from the fighters, to which the police and military reacted with great brutality. "We could document several cases of the torture of innocent people, of abductions and executions", emphasised Gashayeva.

"The Ingushetians, our sister nation, which during the war in Chechnya took in hundreds of thousands of our refugees, are today in no better position than we were then", said Zainap Gashayeva. "The escalation of the violence in recent weeks is a result of the policies of confrontation which Moscow has been pushing in the northern Caucasus."

In the first four months of the year 2009 the Russian human rights organisation Memorial recorded 59 murders in Ingushetia, while in the same period of 2008 there were only nine. The general economic situation is very low. The rate of unemployment runs at around 70%.

On 10^th June the deputy chairperson of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Ingushetia, Asa Gasgireyeva, was shot dead while taking her children to a kindergarten. On 13^th June Bashir Aushev, the former minister of the interior of Ingushetia was shot near his house in Nasran.