Dyshni-Vedeno residents accuse Vostok special operations soldiers of abducting schoolboys

Local residents have been staging a mass meeting in the village of Dyshni-Vedeno, Chechnya's Vedeno district, for several days. The action was caused by the abduction of 3 youths by officers of security agencies which occurred in the morning of May 13. No reliable information on the happening has been obtained so far. According to one version, the officers arrived at the village in several cars without number plates and took the young men from their home. Another version is that the 15-year-old youths were abducted on their way to school.

Lom-Ali Khadzhiyev, a resident of the Vedeno district, has told the Caucasian Knot correspondent locals are convinced Yamadayev's people (the Russian Defense Ministry's special operations battalion Vostok stationed in the town of Gudermes, which is under command of Sulim Yamadayev, a former brigadier general of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria) are behind this abduction. "The overwhelming majority of "purges" and special actions in our district are conducted exactly by Yamadayev's people. They often do it themselves and sometimes jointly with Russian servicemen. They take the abducted people to their location in Gudermes. Locals believe Yamadayev's people were those who abducted the schoolboys in Dyshni-Vedeno. I can't say what is the ground for this belief but they rarely make mistakes in such questions," he said.

The Chechen Interior Ministry has refused to give any comments on the matter.

Editors note: See also the article "3 youths abducted in Chechnya".