Dozens of mass graves containing at least hundreds of corpses were uncovered since the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999. These include the 2001 discovery of 51 corpses in premises of the main Russian military base, an incident which sparked an international outrage. A mass grave is a grave containing more than one human corpse. ... now. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... A military base is a facility, settlement, reservation, or installation that shelters military equipment and personnel. ...

Overview

In March 2001 Human Rights Watch has documented eight unmarked graves, all found in 2000 and 2001. It has also documented eight cases when dead bodies were simply dumped by roadsides, on hospital grounds or elsewhere, and the Memorial Human Rights Center has documented numerous additional cases. The majority of the bodies showed close range bullet wounds, typical of summary executions, and signs of severe mutilation. Examinations by medical doctors of some of these bodies have revealed that some of the deliberate mutilations were inflicted while the detainees were still alive. [1] Human Rights Watch Banner Human Rights Watch is a United States-based international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Memorial (Russian: Мемориал) is an international historical and civil rights society that operates in a number of post-USSR states with the following missions stated in its charter: To promote mature civil society and democracy based on the rule of law and thus to prevent a return to totalitarianism; To assist... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Disfigurement. ... The word physician should not be confused with physicist, which means a scientist in the area of physics. ... Detainee is neutral term used to indicate people held by a government, such as those it does not classify and treat as either prisoners of war or suspects in criminal cases. ...

On March 29, 2001, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, called for a thorough investigation of the mass grave site in a statement to the 57th session of the UNHCR; Robinson stated that "cases such as the mass grave in Zdorovie discovered earlier this year, less than a kilometer from the main military base in Chechnya, must be followed up and thoroughly investigated." Three weeks earlier, the authorities buried the rest of the bodies without prior notice and without performing adequate autopsies or collecting crucial evidence that would have helped to identify the perpetrators. [2] March 29 is the 88th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (89th in Leap years). ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... The purpose of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights involves the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide through direct contact with individual governments and the provision of technical assistance where appropriate. ... Mary Robinson (Irish name Máire Mhic Róibín; born 21 May 1944) was the first female President of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. ... For the former Death Metal band called Autopsy, see Autopsy (band). ...

In 2003, residents and human rights campaigners said fragments of blown-up bodies are being found all over the war-ruined region. Rather than put a stop to human rights violations, the military appears to be doing its best to hide them, critics said. [3] 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

On March 31, 2003 Russian government's human rights commissioner Oleg Mironov has called on the authorities to open mass burial sites in Chechnya to identify the bodies and establish the reasons for their deaths. "It is necessary to open a number of graves in Chechnya and see why the people died, carry out necessary expert examinations, and then bury them as humans deserve," Mironov told a news conference in Moscow. At the same time, Mironov rejected the proposal by Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to establish an international tribunal to investigate alleged war crimes committed in Chechnya. March 31 is the 90th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (91st in Leap years), with 275 days remaining. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Palace of Europe in Strasbourg The Council of Europe is an international organisation of 46 member states in the European region. ...

On June 16, 2005, the local pro-Russian government announced there are 52 mass graves in Chechnya. The chairman of the Chechen government committee for civil rights, Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying the graves have not been opened, so the total number of dead is difficult to determine. Nukhazhiyev had earlier said that up to 60,000 people had lost a relative or friend in the disappearances that have blighted the republic for the past five years. June 16 is the 167th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (168th in leap years), with 198 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... ITAR-TASS (ИТАР-ТАСС), Information Telegraph Agency of Russia, is the major news agency of the Russian Federation. ...

In 2005 up to 5,000 people who had dissapeared since 1999 (2,000 according to the Russian government) remained missing. [4] 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Politics of Russia (the Russian Federation) takes place in a framework of a federal presidential republic, whereby the President of Russia is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. ...

Major discoveries

2000

• April 30, 2000 - Eight decapitated bodies were found in a fresh burial place near the village of Dargo, Vedensky District in southern Chechnya. They were identified as three OMON and three regular police officers, and one military conscript; all had been missing in action for weeks.

• July 27, 2000 - The bodies of about 150 people are reported to have been found in a mass grave near the village of Tangi-Chu, Urus-Martanovsky District in southern Chechnya. 74 bodies, mostly men, were removed from the grave. As many as 80 more remained; people who happened to witness the exhumations said later that the hands of the killed had been tied with barbed wire. An official of the republic's Moscow-approved government said about half the bodies were wearing Chechen rebel uniforms. The rest were civilians who, he said, appeared to have no marks of violence on them.

April 30 is the 120th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (121st in leap years), with 245 days remaining. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Cover of album The Negation Decapitated are a critically and popularly acclaimed death metal band from Poland; their style places them towards the more extreme and technical side of that genre. ... Underwater funeral in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea from an edition with drawings by Alphonse de Neuville and Edouard Riou. ... Capital Grozny Area - total - % water Ranked 80th - 15,300 km² - negligible Population - Total - Density Ranked 49th - est. ... The OMON insignia OMON (Russian: Отряд милиции особого назначения; Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya, Special Purpose Detachment of Militsiya) is a generic name for the system of special units of militsiya within the Russian and earlier the Soviet, Ministerstvo Vnutrennih Del (MVD; Ministry of Internal Affairs). ... MIA is a three-letter acronym that is most commonly used to designate a combatant who is Missing In Action, and has not yet returned or otherwise been accounted for as either dead (KIA) or a prisoner of war (POW). ... July 27 is the 208th day (209th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 157 days remaining. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Grave in Sarajevo during the siege in 1992-1993. ... By other animals Humans are not the only species to bury their dead. ... A selection of forms of barbed wire. ... Olivia Amador ... This page describes uniform in the sense of clothing. ... A civilian is a person who is not a member of a military. ...

2001

• February 21, 2001 - 51 bodies of men and women, showing signs of torture and military-style execution, were uncovered across from the main Russian Khankala military base at Zdorovye, near Grozny. Some bore signs of mutilation, including stab wounds, broken limbs, flayed body parts, severed fingertips and ears cut off, and many had their hands tied behind them and had been blindfolded. Of the nineteen victims whose corpses were identified by relatives, sixteen were last seen as Russian federal forces took them into custody. Human rights groups suggested that Russian servicemen at the Khankala base used the Dachny (also called Zdorovye) dacha settlement as a disposal site for executed prisoners. At the beginning of the second Chechen war, numerous unofficial places of detention existed throughout Chechnya, many of them in the form of earth pits, and the biggest such facility was located on the territory of the headquarters of the federal army in Khankala.

• April 10, 2001 - Pro-Moscow Grozny Mayor Bislan Gantamirov announced 17 bodies with gunshot wounds had been found in the basement of a bombed-out dormitory next to Oktyabrskoye city district police station, manned by the OMON troops from Siberia's Khanty-Mansiysk. An initial examination of the corpses showed that a majority of those killed were middle-aged men and that the bodies were approximately six months old. "We long suspected federal troops [of such crimes]. The mayor's office has hundreds of inquiries from city residents asking to find out about relatives who have disappeared. An especially high number of complaints concerned Oktyabrsky city district police station where detainees often disappeared without a trace," Gantamirov noted. The place was then cordoned off by the military, and the basement was soon destroyed in an apparent cover up. Gantamirov himself did an about-face and joined the chorus of federal officials denying the findings; OMON officer in charge of the station claimed the unit had nothing to do with the disappearance of local residents, adding that mass graves in Chechnya are commonplace.

• April 23, 2001 - A Russian reconnaissance unit has found the remains of at least 18 people in a mass grave near a rough mountain road in southern Chechnya. The victims appeared to have been killed in 1996, but it was not immediately clear who they were, said a spokesman for Kremlin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky.

February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... Torture is any act by which severe pain, whether physical or psychological, is intentionally inflicted on a person as a means of intimidation, deterrence, revenge, punishment, sadism, or information gathering. ... Grozny or Groznyy (Russian: ) is the capital of the Chechen Republic in Russia. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Disfigurement. ... A blindfold is a strip of cloth used to cover the eyes, rendering the user effectively (but temporarily) blind. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... Dacha of Boris Pasternak in Peredelkino. ... Headquarters (HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are concentrated. ... Motto: none Anthem: Hymn of the Russian Federation Capital Moscow Largest city Moscow Official language(s) Russian Government Semi-presidential Federal republic  - President of Russia Vladimir Putin  - Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov Independence From the Soviet Union   - Declared June 12, 1991   - Finalized December 25, 1991  Area    - Total 17,075,400 km... April 10 is the 100th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (101st in leap years). ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... A typical suburban police station in the United States (this one is in San Bruno, California). ... The OMON insignia OMON (Russian: Отряд милиции особого назначения; Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya, Special Purpose Detachment of Militsiya) is a generic name for the system of special units of militsiya within the Russian and earlier the Soviet, Ministerstvo Vnutrennih Del (MVD; Ministry of Internal Affairs). ... Siberian Federal District (dark red) and the broadest definition of Siberia (red) Siberia (Russian: , Sibir’; Tatar: Seber) is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan constituting almost all of Northern Asia. ... Khanty-Mansiysk (Ха́нты-Манси́йск) is a town in Russia, capital of the Khantia-Mansia. ... April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (114th in leap years). ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Kremlin (Кремль) is the Russian word for citadel or castle and refers to any major fortified central complex found in historical Russian cities. ...

2002

• April 9, 2002 - A mass grave containing remains of about 100 people was found in a mountain cave in Achkhoy-Martanovsky District. Local people who discovered the grave said the skulls and bones make it easy to define the age of the victims; some bones reportedly prove there are children aged 10-12 among the bodies, all reportedly beheaded. Lieutenant-General Vladimir Moltenskoi, who commanded combined federal forces in Chechnya, promptly announced the bodies might be of Russian soldiers captured by Chechen fighters in 1994-96 and held in an alleged "death camp". However, eyewitnesses say stewed-pork tins and bottles of vodka found on the spot prove roistering Russian soldiers stayed there, and local people say as early as in December 2000 several Russian military columns with Chechens detained during "mopping-up" operations, including children aged between 10-14, were stationed in the area of the caves.

• September 8, 2002 - Police from Ingushetia have discovered a common grave near Goragorsk, on the border with neighboring Chechnya, containing the bodies of 15 ethnic Chechen men who had been last seen being taken into custody by the Russian troops at different times and in different places. The grave was reportedly found after relatives of the victims paid some Russian soldiers a large amount of cash for information.

April 9 is the 99th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (100th in leap years). ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... Lieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. ... September 8 is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years). ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

2003

• January 13, 2003 - Ten blown up corpses were discovered near Grozny and later taken to a mosque in the Tolstoy-Yurt for identification. On the next day the attorney-general of the Chechen Republic, Vladimir Kravtshenko, said that the bodies belong to people who had earlier been abducted by Chechen fighters. However, the three identified bodies belonged to inhabitants who had been taken into custody by federal forces in the end of 2002; after the blast only fragments remained of the other bodies. A week later on January 19 the remains of three blown-up bodies were found on near a pond in Kulary in Achkhoy-Martanovsky District. According to local inhabitants, the remains of human bodies had been strewn over an area 150-200 metres in diameter; the remains of the unknown bodies were buried at the local cemetery.

• April 6, 2003 - Police in Chechnya said they had discovered four graves filled with disfigured bodies over the past 24 hours. Three sites were found in the northern Nadterechny District, usually a relatively peaceful area, Chechnya's Emergency Situations Ministry said. The heads and arms had been cut off of the corpses, which were stacked in a shallow grave and covered with soil, the ministry said. It did not say how many bodies were in the graves.

January 13 is the 13th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Coat of arms of Count Leo Tolstoy This article is about the Tolstoy family; for the famous novelist, see Leo Tolstoy. ... January 19 is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... April 6 is the 96th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (97th in leap years). ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

2004

• October 9, 2004 - A mass grave containing six unidentified bodies has been discovered in the capital Grozny during excavation work at a building site, Russia's NTV television said. The agency said on Saturday that the six had apparently been shot and buried about three months ago.

• November 20, 2004 - A mass grave containing the bodies of eleven unidentified young people, aged 12 to 20, was discovered near Gudermessky District village of Dzhalka. On November 16, local residents in the Grozny rural district discovered three bodies in the vicinity of residences located near a dairy farm; the victims, males aged 20-40, showed multiple signs of torture.

October 9 is the 282nd day of the year (283rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The name NTV is used by several television broadcasters throughout the world: Nippon Television (Nittele) - Shiodome, Tokyo, Japan NTV (CJON-TV) - St. ... November 20 is the 324th day of the year (325th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... November 16 is the 320th day of the year (321st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 45 days remaining. ...

2006

• April 02, 2006 - 57 bodies were discovered in unmarked grave in the Sergey Kirov Park in Grozny. [5] Valery Kuznetsov, the Chechnya's prosecutor, said an examination of the corpses buried in unmarked grave indicated that they belonged to "ordinary citizens" who had died from explosions of artillery shells and bombs during siege between 1999 and 2000; he said there will be no investigation on the finding. On the site of the former Kirov Park, where in April-May of 2000 nine graves were uncovered, the local authorities plan to build a large entertainment centre which will bear the name of Akhmad Kadyrov. [6] The graves were discovered during de-mining work in the park.

• In June 2006, Russia's human rights groups has produced a documentary evidence of a secret torture and murder cell in the basement of a former school for deaf children in Oktyabrsky district of Grozny. According to Memorial, Russian police used the dungeon to torture and murder hundreds of people, and was decommissioned only last month, when the federal Russian police unit occupying the building withdrew. According to the republic's prosecutor, Valery Kuznetsov, several criminal cases involving the disappearance of people allegedly dispatched to the "temporary holding cells" are being investigated. But Nurdi Nukhajiev, Chechnya's government-appointed representative for human rights, said: "I am not saying that the people [policemen] were ideal individuals. But this is 2006 and they weren't so stupid as to leave evidence of torture and murder behind." Memorial says it collected the evidence just in time and that the building housing the cellar has since been demolished in a crude attempt at a cover-up. [7]

• June 27, 2006 - A grave containing the bodies of nine federal soldiers and local supporters executed by Chechen rebels in 1996-1997 has been discovered in the republic, a spokesman for the FSB branch for Chechnya told Interfax. The grave was found on the premises of a destroyed militant base, he said.

April 2 is the 92nd day of the year (93rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 273 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sergey Mironovich Kirov Sergey Mironovich Kirov (Russian: ) (March 15 O.S. = March 27 N.S., 1886–December 1, 1934) was a Russian revolutionary and high Bolshevik functionary. ... A 155 mm artillery shell fired by a United States 11th Marine regiment M-198 howitzer Historically, artillery refers to any engine used for the discharge of projectiles during war. ... The Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, also known as Mother Of All Bombs, produced in the United States. ... Akhmat Abdulkhamidovich Kadyrov (Russian: Ахмат Абдулхамидович Кадыров (August 23, 1951 – May 9, 2004) was the president of the Chechen Republic (elected on October 5, 2003). ... A torture chamber is a room where torture is carried out. ... June 27 is the 178th day of the year (179th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 187 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... FSB may stand for one of the following. ... Interfax is a Russian non-governmental press agency based in Moscow. ...

See also

• Second Chechen War crimes and terrorism