Mass graves in Chechnya containing hundreds of corpses have been uncovered since the beginning of the Chechen wars in 1994. As of June 2008, there were 57 registered locations of mass graves in Chechnya. According to Amnesty International, thousands may be buried in unmarked graves including up to 5,000 civilians who disappeared since the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999.Amnesty International Issues Reports on Disappearances , The Jamestown Foundation, May 24, 2007 In 2008, the largest mass grave found to date was uncovered in Grozny, containing some 800 bodies from the First Chechen War in 1995.Russia: Chechen Mass Grave Found, Agence France-Presse, June 21, 2008 Russia's general policy to the Chechen mass graves is to not exhume them.
Summary In a March 2001 report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented eight unmarked graves in Chechnya, all of which were discovered in 2000 and 2001; HRW has also documented eight cases in which dead bodies were simply dumped by roadsides, on hospital grounds or elsewhere. The Memorial Human Rights Center also has documented numerous cases. The majority of the bodies showed close-range bullet wounds, typical of extrajudicial summary executions, and signs of mutilation (examinations of some of these bodies by doctors have revealed that some of the mutilations were inflicted while the detainees were still alive,The "Dirty War" In Chechnya, Human Rights Watch, March 2001 indicating that the victims were also severely tortured). On March 29, 2001, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), Mary Robinson, called for a thorough investigation of the mass grave sites in Chechnya. In a statement given to the 57th session of the UNHCR, Robinson stated that the mass graves "must be followed up and thoroughly investigated."Burying The Evidence, Human Rights Watch, May 2001
In 2003, residents and human rights campaigners alleged that fragments of blown-up bodies were being found all over the war-ruined region. The critics alleged that rather than put a stop to the human rights violations, the military appeared to be doing its best to hide them. Families were reported to be paying ransom to Russian troops for bodies.Tracing the disappeared in Chechnya; Families often pay ransom to Russian troops for bodies, San Francisco Chronicle, July 8, 2001 On March 31, 2003, the Russian government's human rights commissioner Oleg Mironov called on the authorities to open the mass burial sites in Chechnya to identify the bodies and establish the reasons for their deaths, "and then bury them as humans deserve." At the same time, Mironov rejected the proposal by Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to establish an international tribunal to investigate alleged war crimes committed in Chechnya.Russian Ombbudsman Calls for Investigation of Chechen Mass Graves , Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 03-04-01
On June 16, 2005, the local pro-Russian government announced that there were 52 mass graves in Chechnya.Russia: Pro-Moscow Chechen Official Confirms Atrocities, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 17 June 2005 The chairman of the Chechen government committee for civil rights, Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying that the graves have not been opened, so the total number of dead was difficult to determine.Chechen government admits civilians buried in mass graves, The Guardian, June 16, 2005 By 2005, AI estimated that up to 5,000 people who had disappeared since 1999, out of the population of roughly one million, were still missing.Russian Federation: Russian police officer found guilty of crimes against the civilian population in the Chechen Republic , Amnesty International, 31 March 2005
As of 2008, exhuming and identifying the bodies in almost 60 identified but unopened mass burial sites remains a problem. European human rights organizations are financing the construction of a laboratory to identify the bodies.The brutal biography of Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 2008 It is not unusual for reconstruction crews in Grozny to run across collections of bodies, and some of them have been quietly moved to make room for the rebuilding.A vexing reminder of war in Chechnya's booming capital, New York Times, April 29, 2008 According to the pro-Moscow Chechen government, 4,825 people disappeared, without a trace, in the republic from 1994 to July 2008.
Selected discoveries (The dates often relate to the media reports, not the discoveries themselves.) February 2000: German N24 television company aired a video tape showing a mass grave of people said to be Chechens, many of whom appeared to be bound and tied at the ankles or wrapped in barbed wire and some to be mutilated (including one with his ear seemingly cut off). The footage also showed a dead Chechen dragged by a lorry truck across a field and Russian soldiers dumping a dead body from a tank. "I was shocked by what I saw," commented Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner. Some Moscow officials argued that it showed the burial of rebels killed in fighting, rather than having been executed, some called it "propaganda and falsification" by the rebels, while still others said Russia opened an investigation regarding the circumstances of the Chechens' death.Chechen 'mass grave' exposed, BBC News, 25 February 2000Russia investigates alleged Chechnya atrocities, The Guardian, February 25, 2000Mass grave video: The Russian view, BBC News, 25 February 2000Evidence of mass graves in Chechnya, AM, 26 February 2000 July 2000: The bodies of about 150 people were reported to have been found in a mass grave near the village of Tangi-Chu, Urus-Martanovsky District in southern Chechnya. People who happened to witness the exhumations claimed that the hands of the dead bodies had been tied with barbed wire. A pro-Moscow official stated that around half the bodies were of Chechen rebels as they had Chechen rebel uniforms on them. The rest were of civilians who "appeared to have no marks of violence on them".Mass grave found in Chechnya, BBC News, 27 July 2000 February 21, 2001: More than 50 (an official in pro-Moscow administration put the number at 80Rights Group: Russia Unlikely to Investigate Mass Grave In Chechnya , The Moscow Times, 19 March 2001) bodies of men, women and children, showing signs of torture and military-style summary execution, were uncovered across the main Russian Khankala military base at the abandoned holiday settlement of Dachny (also called Zdorovye) near Grozny, sparking an international-scale scandal.Mass Grave Found in Chechnya; Russia Must Account for "Disappearances" in Military Custody , Human Rights Watch, 02/27/01 Many were booby-trappedMass Grave Discovered in Chechnya, The Moscow Times, 26 February 2001 and some bore signs of mutilation including stab wounds, broken limbs, severed fingernails and dismembered ears, and many had their hands tied behind them and were blindfolded.50 bodies point to Chechnya war crime, The Daily Telegraph, 05/07/2001 The vast majority (16 out of 19) of the victims whose corpses were identified were last seen when Russian federal forces took them into their custody.Russia accused over Chechnya mass grave , CNN, May 15, 2001 Human rights groups suggested that Russian servicemen at the Khankala base used the Zdorovye dacha settlement as a disposal site for executed prisoners.Russians refuse to check mass grave at Grozny, The Independent, Apr 3, 2001 Among the identified victims was the corpse of Nura Luluyeva, a Chechen woman who was later proven in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to have been kidnapped and bludgeoned to death by the Russian servicemen in 2000.Kremlin 'was complicit in Chechen murders' , The Independent, 10 November 2006 The authorities, who had strongly denied involvement in the deaths,Russia rejects mass grave blame , CNN, May 17, 2001 had buried the rest of the bodies without prior notice and without performing adequate autopsies or collecting crucial evidence which could have helped in identifying the perpetrators. The HRW called the official investigation a "charade".Russia's Mass Grave Investigation "A Charade"; Human Rights Commission Urged to Back International Investigation , Human Rights Watch, 04/02/01 April 10, 2001: Pro-Moscow Grozny mayor Beslan Gantamirov announced that 17 bodies with gunshot wounds had been discovered in the basement of a bombed-out dormitory next to Oktyabrskoye city district police station, manned by the OMON special police troops from Siberia's Khanty-Mansiysk. The next day Gantamirov announced that his report was false and there were no bodies found. When explaining his change of heart, Gantamirov said that he learned of the discovery from the same source as the Russian envoy to the region Viktor Kazantsev, who also first confirmed the find, but later denied it. The 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.Grozny Mayor Recants Over Mass-Grave Remarks , The St. Petersburg Times, April 13, 2001 In March 2005, one of the unit's officers, Sergey Lapin, was convicted for the torture of a Chechen man who remains missing.Widespread Torture in the Chechen Republic: Lack of Accountability, Human Rights Watch, November 13, 2006 In June 2006, Memorial produced what it says is documentary evidence of a secret torture center in the basement of a former school for deaf children in the Oktyabrsokye district of Grozny, which the Russian police allegedly used to hold, torture and murder hundreds of people. The activists said they collected the evidence just in time before the building housing the cellar was demolished in what they said was a crude attempt at a cover-up.Russian 'torture cell' found in Grozny cellar , The Independent, 9 June 2006 April 22, 2001: A Russian reconnaissance unit found the remains of at least 18 and as many as 30 people in a mass grave near a rough mountain road in southern Chechnya. According to a spokesman for the Kremlin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the victims appeared to have been prisoners of war or kidnapping victims killed during the First Chechen War and all appeared to have been shot in the head and then beheaded.Mass Grave Discovered in Chechnya , Associated Press, April 24, 2001Russiaq: New Mass Grave Discovered in Chechnya, Associated Press, April 24, 2001Russian squad finds mass grave in Chechnya , Associated Press, April 22, 2001 June 25, 2001: The remains of 10 men were uncovered in a ditch on the outskirts of Grozny, while 16 more corpses (two without heads) were found near the Russian military headquarters at Khankala just few days earlier.Ten bodies uncovered in ditch near Grozny, The Daily Telegraph, 25 Jun 2001 March 3, 2002: ABC reported that the Chechen rebels said they found a mass grave containing more than 20 bodies of civilians in a grain silo in the town of Argun, of whom they recovered three. Human rights groups said many civilians went missing there during the sweep operation three months earlier.Rebels find mass grave in Chechnya, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 3, 2002