February 15, 2003	Saturday	Zul Hijjah 13, 1423

AKHMATI (Georgia): Some 4,000 Chechen refugees in Georgia’s perilous Pankisi Gorge are pressing to be moved to a third country, worn down by their dire living conditions but above all fearful of possible Russian bombing raids.

Fears of Russian military action against the alleged rebel stronghold are widespread among the refugees, and many of them have applied to the UN refugee agency UNHCR to be moved to another country, their chief spokesman Aslambek Abdurzakov said.

In the information vacuum created by their lack of access to regular news sources, including television, many refugees believe a US invasion of Iraq will trigger Russian bombardments on Pankisi.

One refugee, Esma, was categorical: “If there’s war in Iraq, that’s it: the Russians will attack.”

Russia has threatened direct military action across its border into northern Georgia to clear out what it regards as a rebel Chechen rear base, and earlier this month Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said that despite Georgian denials, illegal Chechen groups were still operating in the Akhmati region.

Though Moscow has officially denied launching raids into the Pankisi gorge, refugees remember a raid by Russian warplanes last autumn in which they say one person was killed and several others were wounded.

Another of the many rumours circulating in the gorge is that despite reassurances by the Georgian authorities they may be forcibly repatriated to their homeland, said Abdurzakov, who was among the tens of thousands of Chechens who fled their homes when Russian troops invaded in October 1999.

Fear and uncertainty for the future are the daily lot of refugees in the Pankisi region, some 200 kilometres north of Tbilisi, as are the harsh living conditions.

Three thousand of them live at Duisi, a small town at the entrance to the gorge, crammed into small rooms with no electricity and bad water, said refugee Taisa.

Families receive a ration every two months of 25 kgs of flour, 1.2 kgs of sugar, 3.6 kgs of beans and 1.5 kgs of cooking oil, she said.

They receive no financial assistance and are unable to work. Local officials at one point discussed the possibility of giving the refugees small plots of land to cultivate, but this was ruled out.—AFP