Information about the abduction of seven residents of Grozny, Chechnya, by unidentified “security agents” on the night of 21-22 November 2017 has been sent to the Memorial Human Rights Centre, Novaya Gazeta, and the internet publisher Caucasian Knot.

Earlier, Memorial Human Rights Centre (Moscow) had said that on November 22 Zelimkhan Dikaev, a thirty-two-year-old resident of Grozny, was abducted. The people who had taken him said that they planned to deliver Zelimkhan to the North Battalion (in 2010 the battalion was renamed the 141st special motorized regiment of the internal military forces of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

However, it turns out that at least seven people were abducted. At least two unidentified security in passenger automobiles took them at night from their homes in front of their relatives.

According to available information, those abducted are being held on the territory of the third squadron of the regiment of the National Guard in the Staropromyslovsky neighborhood of Grozny (in the microregion Solyanaya Balka) in inhuman conditions: they are being held in unheated rooms and are barely fed. Rights organizations have not as yet been able to obtain any details of illegal violence carried out against them.

Security forces have not confirmed that the abducted people are being held in that area, but rights defenders consider the information to be reliable.

Rights organizations currently have the following incomplete data about six of the imprisoned:

Zelikhman Dikaev, 32, resident of the Zavodsky neighborhood of Grozny;

Alkhazur, presumed Suleymanov (oncological surgeon), 32/33;

Hussein Akhmatov, resident of the Staropromyslovskiy neighborhood of Grozny, approximately 25;

Shadid Shadaev, resident of the Voykovo village of Grozny, approximately 32;

Zeyndi (last name unknown), village of Voykovo, approximately 32–35;

Magomed (last name unknown), village of Voykovo, approximately 32–35.

The Memorial Human Rights Centre will appeal to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and to the Federal Human Rights Ombudsperson to inquire about the disappeared people.

Translated by Julie Hersh