Details of bombing in Rigakhoy village

The Memorial Human Rights Center published information on April 13 that a woman and five children were killed in the April 9 bombing in the mountain village of Rigakhoy, Chechnya's Vedeno district. The same day, chief of the press service of the Air Force Colonel Aleksandr Drobishevsky made a statement denying the involvement of his department in the tragedy in Rigakhoy.

Representatives of the Center visited the site of the incident and got more specific information. According to it, on April 8, between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., a bombing attack (350F 5-90 is a number of one of the bombs) was made on the remote mountainous settlement of Rigakhoy in the Vedeno district. The house of Imar-Ali Damayev took a direct hit, which killed almost all members of his family: his wife - Maidat Tsintsayeva (b. 1975) and children - Djansi (b. 1999), Zharadat (b. 2000), Umar-Khazhi (b. 2002), Zara (b. 2003), and Zura (b. 2003). The capacity of the explosion can be estimated by the fact that the family's sheep and a horse that were out were killed.

Locals reported that officials of the Vedeno district military prosecutor's and prosecutor's offices visited the village at about 10 a.m. on April 13. They conducted a perfunctory inspection of the site and said that a landmine had detonated there and they saw no grounds for launching criminal investigation into the case.

"Such "versions" do not correspond with the circumstances at all. We hope that the tragedy in the village of Rigakhoy will be thoroughly investigated nevertheless, and the guilty will be punished," reads the statement by the Memorial Center.

Editors note: See also the article "Air strike kills six civilians in Chechnya".