MOSCOW, Dec 19: Russia has abandoned a plan to close by year- end all camps in Ingushetia housing refugees from the war in Chechnya after coming under intense international pressure, a UN official said on Thursday.

“There is no longer reference to a deadline or to a date,” said Toby Lanzer, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The United Nations has “maintained a very active dialogue with Russian authorities” since it launched the plan with the closure of the Aki Yurt camp on the Chechen-Ingush border in southern Russia, Lanzer said.

The United Nations has substantiated reports that refugees were forced to leave the camp and return to Chechnya, which has been ravaged by war since Russia sent in federal troops to squash a separatist rebellion in October 1999, he added.

Russia has denied forcing refugees to return to the breakaway republic, but Lanzer said that “officials continue to go through camps encouraging people to go home.”

“In the case of Aki Yurt, we did think that people had been coerced,” he said.

Moscow had said it planned to close all camps in Ingushetia housing people who fled the war in Chechnya by December 20, as part of a campaign seen as a bid to illustrate that the situation in the war-torn republic is under control.

The controversial plan, together with reports that refugees were being forced to return to Chechnya despite Russian assurances to the contrary, sparked an outcry from human rights groups and international organizations.

“A plan exists to close the camps and move people back,” Lanzer said. “The UN is neither for nor against camp closures per se — what we are for is that people have a choice and full information on options and that those options include the possibility of staying if they so choose.”—AFP