396 abducted in Chechnya in 2004

Preliminary reports of the Human Rights Center Memorial say that 396 people were abducted on the territory of Chechnya in 2004. 187 of them have been released or redeemed, 24 have been found dead, 175 have gone missing, and 10 are under examination.

For the same period of time, 293 locals were found dead on the territory of Chechnya, 114 of them being civilians, 101 - officers of local security agencies, 7 - state officials, 36 - members of rebel groups of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and 35 - unidentified people.

It should be taken into consideration that this number does not include all abductions and killings in Chechnya. Memorial can conduct its monitoring only in some parts of the republic covering approximately 25-30% of its territory. The other regions, including mountainous ones, remain out of access for activists of the organization. "Murders and abductions of people are committed almost everyday. Besides, Memorial barely makes an exhaustive report for the regions covered by the monitoring," Dmitry Grushkin, an activist of the human rights organization, said. "By our approximate estimates, the total number of crimes committed against civilians in Chechnya can be 3-4 times as much as the number Memorial has. It should also be taken into consideration that because of the specific way of conducting the monitoring in Chechnya, data for the recent two months are always underestimated and are supplied gradually during the next few months."