Repeated shelling of Argun, shooting at civilians in Tolstoy-Yurt, “cleansing” in the village of Kirov and other events in Grozny

November 19, 2001

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Argun has been subjected to mortar fire again over the past two days. Just like the day before, the main blow fell on Gudermesskaya Street. House No. 12, owned by Zara Gadieva, suffered the most. There were four young children inside at the time.

During the shelling, panic arose in the city. Classes have stopped in all schools. In search of shelter, students fled in fear to surrounding houses and streets.

On the same day, more than 50 residents of the city appealed to the military commandant of Argun with a demand to stop shelling civilian targets, but he stated that the Russian army was not involved in them. According to him, the city was fired upon by the ChRI military forces, which allegedly “have homemade artillery installations.”

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In the village Tolstoy-Yurt, a passing military convoy opened fire on women trading along the road. Malika Yushaeva, born 1938, was wounded. The daughter standing next to her died.

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During the “cleansing” in the village of Kirov in Grozny, Russian military officers detained 11 people. All the detainees had identification documents with them, however, they were taken to the commandant’s office and the Zavodsky District VOVD, where they were interrogated and detained for several days. The detainees were asked to tell about the whereabouts of certain “Wahhabis.” They asked about the people who, back in 2000, blew up a military Ural near the village.

On November 24, the last resident of the village taken away during the “cleansing” returned home. Not only criminal, but even administrative cases were not opened against them. As it turned out, there were no complaints against them from the Russian authorities. While people were imprisoned, relatives made significant efforts to free them. For this purpose, we also visited the deputy military commandant of the district. Having learned (or pretended that he had just found out) about what had happened, he was indignant and promised to look into everything.

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At about 21:00, a residential sector in the Leninsky district of Grozny was shelled from a heavy weapon. Banati Vakhidovna Berdukaeva, living at the address: Kirova Avenue, 27, apt. 19, was injured.

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Alavdi Saralievich Makhauri, born in 1960, left home for work in Grozny and did not return. He is a lawyer and was driving his own white Zhiguli car at the time of his disappearance. As of September 18, 2008, what happened to Alavdi Makhauri remained a mystery to his relatives. The search measures they took led to nothing: they were unable to obtain any information about the fate of Makhauri. They appealed to the district and republic police departments, the prosecutor's office and the Memorial Human Rights Center (the application was accepted on September 18, 2008).

As Natasha Makhauri, the mother of the disappeared, said, a criminal case was opened on this fact, but she could not say anything about its number and the condition it was in.

Alavdi Makhauri lived in the village of Frunzenskoye at the address: Yuzhnaya St., 19.

From the book “People Live Here”, Usam Baysaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006.