Human rights abuses continue in Chechnya

Both Russian and Chechen armed forces committed serious human rights abuses last year during the conflict in Chechnya, Amnesty International said in its annual report, released this week.

Violations by Russian forces included torture, disappearances, extra-judicial executions and arbitrary detention in unofficial prisons that "often amounted to little more than pits in the ground."

Criminal probes by Russian federal authorities into human rights abuses by military and police forces in Chechnya were "inadequate and ineffective," Amnesty said in its survey of last year's world events.

Few of those responsible for grave violations were known to have been brought to trial by the Russians in 2001.

Russia has been fighting a brutal guerrilla war since October 1999 against Chechen separatists, which Moscow has linked to the international war against terrorism.

The conflict saw Chechen troops unlawfully killing captured Russian soldiers, Amnesty said.

Chechen fighters also engaged in frequent armed attacks against civilian members of the pro-Moscow administration, resulting in dozens of fatalities and serious injuries, according to the human rights group.

An estimated 160,000 internally displaced people, most of them women and children, remained in overcrowded refugee camps in Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia with inadequate shelter and sanitation.

Amnesty noted that Council of Europe delegates visiting the region in December said that conditions for refugees in Chechnya were "terrible" and getting worse.

Elsewhere in the Russian Federation, Amnesty received reports of torture and ill treatment of people in police custody, and of "cruel, inhuman and degrading" prison conditions.

Refugees and asylum seekers were at risk of being sent back to countries where they could face human rights violations.

Meanwhile, conscientious objectors to military service faced forcible conscription and imprisonment, Amnesty said.