Chechen refugees return home from Georgia
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-07 14:29

Russian authorities took a planeload of Chechen refugees from the former Soviet republic of Georgia back home Tuesday.

Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry flew 125 refugees to Makhachkala in the southern Russian province of Dagestan, where they will be taken by bus to Chechnya, said Alexander Rostovtsev, an official with the migration service.

The refugees were among thousands of Chechens who fled to Georgia's rugged Pankisi Gorge across the border with Chechnya.

Some of the women, accompanied by children, wept as they stepped off the plane and turned away from the waiting television cameras.

"I am very glad to be home. It is better at home, although it was not bad there," said one woman who gave her name as Madina.

Bayan Karsanova, 50, said she had left Grozny in 1999 after her apartment was destroyed.

Chechen refugees are seen in Makhachkala airport in the southern Russian province of Dagestan, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2005, while returning back to Chechnya.[AP]

In Georgia she complained that conditions were difficult as the refugees subsisted on government handouts and could not work to earn their living.

"I am glad I am here, I hope it will be better at home," she said.

The Chechens' presence in the gorge badly strained Russia's relations with Georgia for years since the second war in Chechnya began in 1999. Russian officials claimed that Pankisi was infested with rebels and accused Georgian authorities of failing to eradicate them.

Georgia launched an operation in 2003 to search the gorge for suspected militants, but Moscow called the operation largely useless.

Smaller groups of refugees previously have returned from the gorge, and thousands others came back to Chechnya from refugee camps in Russia's republic of Ingushetia that borders Chechnya to the west.

The Russian authorities have encouraged the refugees' return in a bid to show that Chechnya was returning to normal and offered compensation for homes lost in the war.

The compensation was only offered in Chechnya, and that encouraged many refugees to return despite concerns over continuing violence, rampant abductions and miserable conditions in the region.

Russian security officials had carefully screened Chechen refugees willing to return for links to rebels, Idigov said.

"Those who aren't coming back have their hands stained in blood," said Sultan Idigov, the head of the Moscow-backed Chechen administration's refugee department.

He said the refugees would be given temporary accommodation in Grozny.