About 150 refugee families plan to return to Chechnya from Ingushetia

About 150 families of refugees plan to return to Chechnya from tent camps in Ingushetia before the end of this week, Chechen government sources told Interfax on March 11.

"About 150 families may return from tent camps in Ingushetia to Chechnya this week. All of them are eligible for compensation for lost property and housing," deputy chairman of the Chechen governmental committee for refugees Mompash Machuyev told Interfax.

He said the refugees would return from the two last tent camps in Ingushetia, Sputnik and Satsita.

The Bart tent camp near Karabulak was closed on March 1. More than 600 families remain in the two tent camps. About 40,000 refugees live in the private sector and places of compact residence in Ingushetia.

The two tent camps in Ingushetia will be closed by the end of March. "We are sure we will solve the problem this month," Machuyev said.

"Human rights organizations are claiming there is pressure on the refugees. They'd better protect human rights and interests and shout that living conditions in the tents are intolerable," he said.

Meanwhile, Moscow Helsinki Group chairwoman Lyudmila Alekseyeva said "refugees are being forced to return to Chechnya from Ingushetia."

The number of tent camp residents who wish to return to Chechnya is growing, Alekseyeva said. "Yet the reasons are artificial. People agree to leave because they doubt the security of the tent camps. In addition, they are promised compensation for lost houses and property only if they go back to Chechnya," she said.

Refugees are returning to Chechnya of their own accord, Ingush presidential press secretary Isa Merzhoyev told Interfax.

"The pace of the refugee return depends on conditions created for them in Chechnya. There is no pressure on refugees to return from Ingushetia. Any other interpretations of the return of refugees to Chechnya are unfounded," Merzhoyev said.