Kabardino-Balkaria: children of the militants who perished on October 13, 2005, are paid social pensions

The children of the militants who perished during October events in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, have begun to receive social pensions at a rate of 1035 roubles per month. It has been reported earlier that so far no pensions had been paid, since the Branch of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation for the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) received an instruction of the head of the investigatory group A. Yu. Sovrulin, which prohibited to pay out pensions to the children of deceased militants.

Consequently, the militants' children did not get their pensions for eight months.

Some of the mothers and widows of the casualties did not agree with the measure and wrote a letter to Arsen Kanokov, President of Kabardino-Balkaria.

"A social pension, unlike labour pension, is paid out irrespective of the circumstances of the death of the parents, and it is a form of state support of the persons who have no right for the labour pension," the relatives wrote in their letter.

"The children of other casualties were immediately awarded labour pensions for loss of bread-winners, but our children were deprived even of the social one, which is discrimination of absolutely innocent children," the letter also runs.

The authors of the appeal ask the President of Kabardino-Balkaria to restore the rights of their children and order that the due pensions should be paid out to them for loss of breadwinner starting from November 2005.