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A Van with Thirteen Passengers

The Isaev, Magomadov and Khamidov families from the Grozny suburb of Staraia Sunzha had rented a van and a driver to drive to Ingushetia on October 29. After turning back in the late morning, their van was caught in the middle of the attack. Shrapnel from one of the rockets killed three of the passengers, including a sixteen-year-old girl and her eight-year-old brother, wounded a fourth passenger fatally, and left six others with various injuries.

The van carrying the three families was very close to the bridge over the river Fortanga at the moment of the attack. When a rocket hit a truck several vehicles ahead of their van, the three families decided to hide in the fields below the road. Aslambek Magomadov said: “[We saw] an enormous cloud of char, dust, dirt, flying panels of a truck, shrapnel, rubbish, whatever. Nothing hit our van but we could see it all. People started to panic.”⁴⁵

According to Magomadov, most vehicles around them stopped and the passengers jumped down into the fields, fearing the planes would return. The road at that location runs on top of an embankment, situated about two to two-and-a-half meters above the fields below it. Magomadov and his relatives were trying to get out of their vehicle when another rocket hit the field on the south side of the road, not far from their van.⁴⁶ Shrapnel hit those who had already managed to get out of the van. Sixteen-year-old Ilona Isaeva, who had gotten married three months earlier, and her brother, the eight-year-old Saidmagomed Isaev, were hit in the head and died instantly. Ilona Isaeva’s head was blown off and was never found. Saidmagomed Isaev would have turned nine the next day. Zina Khamidova, Ilona Isaeva’s mother-in-law, told Human Rights Watch:

When shrapnel started to fly by, we all tried to get out of the car. Then I heard the first scream of my son. I don’t know how he managed to get out; he was sitting in the back. Later he told me that he jumped through the window when he saw that his wife fell down. He ran to the car and started screaming: “Mama, they killed my Ilona!” I jumped out of the car and saw two children on the ground: my daughter-in-law and her brother, holding hands. [I saw their mother] with eyes as if she were looking into an abyss, waiting for a rocket to hit her because she saw that her children had died. The girl lay there without a head.⁴⁷

A third person, Kisa Asieva, a woman in her sixties, also died on the spot. She was hit in the chest and head.

A forty-eight-year-old mother, Asthma Umarova, was fatally wounded in the leg. Magomadov said:

My mother was still alive [immediately after the attack], she died closer to Alkhan Yurt from loss of blood. Half her thigh was gone, the bone was smashed. There was no way of saving her, even though I have some elementary first aid knowledge.⁴⁸

Various other passengers suffered non-fatal injuries. Only two passengers, a baby and Ilona Isaeva’s husband, remained completely unhurt. Aslambek Magomadov was hit by shrapnel in both legs and an arm. Zina Khamidova was wounded in the arm. She told Human Rights Watch:

I was delayed [getting out of the van] because of my shoes: one shoe flew off my foot and I couldn’t find it. That’s why I was delayed. If I hadn’t been delayed, maybe I would have died. I don’t know.⁴⁹

Shrapnel hit Zina Iusupova in the throat but missed her vital organs. Madina Isaeva, the forty-six-year old mother of Ilona Isaeva, was wounded in the arm. Alikhan Vakhabov, a teenager, was wounded in the shoulder. His mother, Zura Vakhabova, suffered a contusion. The driver of the van driver was hit in the legs and was in shock.