RUSSIAN SOLDIERS ENTER ALKHAN-YURT

Russian forces entered Alkhan-Yurt early on the morning of December 1 and went on a house-to-house search to ensure that no fighters were left in the village. In the process, serious abuses were committed: live grenades were thrown into cellars, looting started almost immediately, while many civilians were expelled to Kulary, a village about one mile to the west.

Donza Umarov, a sixty-five-year-old pensioner, told Human Rights Watch that on the morning of December 1 Russian soldiers came to the cellar where he was staying:

Early in the morning on December 1, someone knocked at the gates. My son asked who it was, but no one answered. Then I asked in Russian, "Who is there?" There was no reply again, but a grenade flew into the cellar. No one was killed or seriously injured when the grenade exploded, but I received several scratches on my face. [The soldiers later asked for directions, and left.]

Soon we again heard a knock at the gate. This time there were twelve soldiers. They said we shouldn't sit in the cellar because they throw grenades into them. It was better for us to stay outside. The soldiers broke the padlock of my son's house. They sat down, had some food, then took the rest of the products [from my son's home] and left. They mainly took the food, leaving nothing for us.20

Similarly, Adem Taramov, thirty-four, told Human Rights Watch how soldiers opened the door to the large cellar where he and others were staying and threw in a grenade:

We were in the cellar of our apartment building, next to the school. We didn't hear the soldiers approach. Suddenly, the door was opened and they started firing their guns. Then, they threw a grenade at us. The grenade exploded, but we had sandbags and due to this only one man got a smallwound in his head. There were fifteen or twenty people in the basement. Not far from our hiding place, there was another cellar, and the soldiers threw a grenade into that cellar too.21

In several cases, soldiers threw live grenades without warning into cellars inhabited by civilians, causing the deaths of at least three persons and contributing to the deaths of others.22 Three women staying in a cellar on SuvorovStreet were killed in one such incident on December 1. According to forty-year-old Zara Israelova, sixty-five-year-old Maret Pashayeva, seventy-year-old Deti Temirsultanova, and Temirsultanova's daughter, thirty-five-year-old Sordat Temirsultanova, were hiding in a neighbor's cellar when soldiers came and threw grenades into the cellar. Deti Temirsultanova and her daughter, Sordat, died immediately, while Maret Pashayeva was severely wounded and taken to the hospital in Goyty, where she later died. All three women are believed to have been buried in Goyty.23

Russian soldiers treated the villagers with contempt, swearing at them and threatening them. Fatima Ayubova, a thirty-two-year-old history teacher from Alkhan-Yurt, recalled how the soldiers had entered her cellar:

Soldiers broke the gate and came into the yard. I heard firing and the soldiers were saying bad things. They swore because they knew it is a humiliation for us to hear swearing as [Muslim] women. The mildest curses were, `Look at these bitches, how rich they are,' and `We will fuck you all.' I am sorry to have to repeat this.24

According to several witnesses, a contract soldier went up to a five-year-old girl with earrings, and said "look, even small girls here have diamonds," and ripped off the earrings, tearing the ear lobes of the girl [the stones were imitation].25

After checking many of the homes in the village, the Russian soldiers gathered a large group of civilian men and women at the edge of the village. According to several witnesses, the soldiers divided men and women into two groups, sent the women to Kulary, and started stripping the Chechen men, looking for telltale signs of fighting such as a bruised shoulder from firing rifles. Some of the contract soldiers began arguing with the conscript soldiers, suggesting that the men should be shot: "Why let them go? Let's shoot them down here."26 In the end, the men were allowed to walk towards Kulary, the same direction the women had walked. Donza Umarov, a sixty-five-year-old pensioner, told Human Rights Watch:

They kept us in the field for three hours. They didn't speak to us, and didn't answer our questions. After three hours passed, they said, "If you want to live, go to Kulary." We tried to persuade the soldiers to let us go to our homes and take some clothes, but we were not allowed.27

The ordeal for the civilians expelled from Alkhan-Yurt was not yet over: on the way to Kulary, they came under active shelling from tanks:

More than 150 people went to Kulary via the back roads. As we walked, we were shelled. The shells exploded around us on both sides of the road. We had to fall to the ground, and crawl until we could stand up again and run, then fall again. The Russians were "teasing" us in that way.28

Thirty-one-year-old "Rustam R." (not his real name) was one of the men in Alkhan-Yurt when the Russian soldiers entered the town. "To tell the truth, we were actually expecting the soldiers, so the nightmare, the bombardment, might end," he began when recounting his experience to Human Rights Watch.29 He was in a cellar with eighteen other civilians on December 1, when at 8 a.m., without any warning, machine gun fire rang out and an F-1 grenade was tossed into their cellar, wounding a woman. A young man in the cellar shouted out, "Don't shoot! There are women, old folk here!," and the Russian soldiers ordered the civilians to come out, the old men first. Rustam R., who served in the Soviet army, was struck by the appearance and rude behavior of the troops: "[They] were cursing, prison-slang like, `you animals, faggots, you should all be shot.' They didn't have differing ranks, whoever was strongest was in command.... There were bearded and shaven ones, it was clear that they were not young."30

The men and women were led toward the outskirts of town, with soldiers firing in the air to direct the group of civilians. Suddenly, Rustam R. and two other young men were taken out of the group and the soldiers began to prepare to shoot the three young men, with one saying "now let's finish it off." The parents of the other two men intervened, saving the three men from execution: "They began to scream and cry and he let [us] go, either because he took pity on us, or the Almighty stirred his conscience and he let me go. We were led back to the group."31

According to Rustam R., the soldiers started looting as soon as they entered Alkhan-Yurt. Many villagers had packed up their belongings in anticipation of a possible evacuation of the village. When the soldiers entered, Rustam R. claimed, they began to collect the packed belongings of the civilians:

First they carried away the bags, everything was packed into bags. Later the Ural [trucks] came along empty, to lug away everything piece after piece: rugs, they shot up the televisions, they searched for valuables, turned the houses inside out.... So these three Ural [trucks] were seen at my place in the courtyard and there they took everything without exception: refrigerators, rugs, and televisions. They carried away everything and set the house on fire."32

After being detained, Rustam R. and the others were finally told "If you want to live-there is the road to Kulary," and started walking in that direction. Rustam R. explained what happened as they started walking on the road towards Kulary, confirming what Umarov had told Human Rights Watch:

We had gone about three hundred meters, and the tanks were crawling slowly behind us. And so from Kulary, they began, left and right, to hit us with shells. Can you believe it! I swear by Allah, it is the truth! On the road they were not shooting, or mocking, but egging us on. We'd run forwardand there would be a shot in that direction, to the left, to the right. When we crossed the bridge, they then stopped. Then I understood this had been taunting, they were directing us like livestock.33

Rustam R. concluded bitterly: "These weren't the troops we were expecting. On television, they talked about liberators, but instead a bunch of convicts and looters arrived."