Residents of Chechnya: restrictions introduced by authorities provoke panic

In Chechnya, an unprecedented flow of buyers in grocery stores and wholesale points was a reaction to measures against the spread of the coronavirus infection taken by the federal and republican authorities, local residents suggest.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 16, Ramzan Kadyrov called on residents of Chechnya not to be afraid of the spread of the coronavirus infection and stop buying food. The leader of Chechnya threatened that people who were disseminating panic rumours in social networks would have to apologize.

Local residents are scared by the measures taken by the federal and republican authorities against the spread of the coronavirus infection, believes Rosa, a woman from Grozny. "It seems to me I never saw such panic in groceries like yesterday, even during the war. People are buying everything up. Well, our local authorities 'helped' the panic. Some of these days, they told us that everything was fine and refuted the information that kindergartens and schools would be closed. And yesterday, they introduced early vacations, for more than a month. Naturally, people got scared and ran off to buy food to make reserves. You never know what can happen," the woman from Grozny told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The deterioration of the economic situation in Russia has also provoked people to buying food products in large volumes, believes Umar, a resident of Chechnya. "Countries close borders, the coronavirus infection is spreading, and, in addition, the rouble continued to fall yesterday. And for people, that means they should expect the next sharp growth of prices. So, the population has started panicking," the man told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 17, 2020 at 01:34 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.