Alkhan-Yurt killings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Alkhan-Yurt killings occured in early December 1999, when the Russian troops under command of general Vladimir Shamanov killed numerous civilians during nearly three-week drunken rampage in the village of Alkhan-Yurt near the Chechen capital Grozny.
[edit] Rampage
Nearly all of the killings committed by Russian soldiers in Alkhan-Yurt were reportedly carried out by soldiers who were looting. Many other civilians who attempted to stop the looting were threatened with death by Russian soldiers, and narrowly escaped summary execution. At least three women are believed to have been raped.
Russian forces took control of Alkhan-Yurt, a village just south of Grozny on December 1, 1999, after weeks of heavy fighting. The Chechen fighters, who included many foreign fighters among their ranks, inflicted heavy losses on the Russian forces, killing more than 70 Russian soldiers before retreating.
According to the Human Rights Watch report:
(Russian soldiers) first expelled, temporarily, hundreds of civilians from Alkhan-Yurt, and then began systematically looting and burning the village, killing anyone in their way. Among the dead were: centenarian Nabitst Kornukayeva, and her elderly son Arbi, who were found shot to death in the yard of their looted home; fifty-seven-year-old Khamid Khazuyev, who was shot in the yard of his home when he tried to stop looting soldiers; Akhanpash Dudayev, sixty-five, who was killed in his basement, and his body burned in his looted home; and Taus Sultanov, forty-nine, who was shot in a cellar and left to bleed to death while soldiers robbed other civilians with him of their belongings. The killings went on for more than two weeks, without any apparent attempt by Russian authorities to stop it. Aindi Altimirov, the last to die, was killed and beheaded by Russian soldiers on December 18.
[edit] Aftermath
The villagers and Malik Saidulayev, one of the most prominent of pro-Moscow Chechen leaders, identified the soldiers responsible for the abuses as the 15th Battalion, part of the Western Group of Forces under the command of Major-General Vladimir Shamanov.
When the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Koshman and a group of other Russian generals inspected the village, a group of soldiers were recorded threatening to shoot him and his entourage. The officials discovered several caches of goods looted by Russian soldiers, including a tent stuffed with blankets and carpets and a military truck fully loaded with electronic goods. [1]
Shamanov, commander of the troops at Alkhan-Yurt, dismissing calls for accountability for the abuses: "Don't you dare touch the soldiers and officers of the Russian army. They are doing a sacred thing today - they are defending Russia. And don't you dare sully the Russian soldier with your dirty hands!", he said.
Koshman promised the official investigation, which was however soon closed "for lack of evidence of a crime."
