RUSSIA: Elderly and mentally handicapped group of refugees decide to return home to war-torn Chechnya

Record ID: 274394

  • Title: RUSSIA: Elderly and mentally handicapped group of refugees decide to return home to war-torn Chechnya
  • Date: 1st September 2001
  • Summary: GROZNY, CHECHNYA, RUSSIA (AUGUST 22, 2001)(REUTERS) TRACKING SHOT BOMBED OUT APARTMENT HOUSES SLV STREETS MV WOMAN SELLING BEVERAGES ON STREETS (2 SHOTS) SLV GATES OF THE HOME FOR ELDERLY AND MENTALLY RETARDED PEOPLE MV WOMAN STANDING NEXT TO WINDOW SLV PEOPLE NEAR THE ENTRANCE TO THE HOME FOR ELDERLY AND MENTALLY RETARDED MV ONE-LEGGED AMPUTEE MAN SITTING ON BED READING
  • Embargoed: 16th September 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GROZNY, CHECHNYA, RUSSIA
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVA7LLEDAZ27AOA2IVCZ3RQWNHZX
  • Story Text: Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled Russia's war-torn breakaway republic of Chechnya over the past two years. But a group of elderly residents, many of them handicapped or mentally ill -- have decided to return to their house of rubble and ruin in order to live out their lives in their native land.
    The Chechen capital of Grozny is full of ruins. Two independence wars over the past seven years have almost completely destroyed the city. And Grozny, like the entire republic, is largely abandoned. More than 200,000 Chechen citizens fled the republic in the past two years. Those that remained were forced to eke out a living selling goods on ruined streets.
    But even these squalid conditions provides a home to many.
    Some are choosing to risk the fighting and endure the hardships so that they can simply remain at home.
    A centre of this homecoming is Grozny's only Home for Aged with Physical and Mental Disorders. Russian officials evacuated the home's residents during some of the heaviest fighting. Now, some of the elderly have returned and younger people with mental or physical disorders have taken shelter under its roof. In all, there are sixty residents.
    Conditions are spartan, near unsanitary, but this is the best care that many of the residents will receive.
    Zina, a senior nurse at the home, says that dozens more former residents have written to her, begging to be allowed to return. She tells them that they simply can't take in any more people.
    "Look at this! The walls are falling apart, I'm afraid to touch them. And I have to keep these people in such horrible conditions," Zina says.
    One of the residents is 75-year-old Maria Kolotigina. She has lived in Grozny since 1962. Maria fled to the neighbouring Russian city of Mozdok nearly two years ago when shells destroyed her house. But she missed home and, having family only in Chechnya, she has chosen to spend what will probably be the last years of her life in her home city.
    "The nurses here are very kind people, they take care of us here, that is the reason I always wanted to come back to this place. I have lived here all my life," Maria says.
    Many of the nurses that work with Maria are volunteers who rely on humanitarian handouts of food, medicine, and clothing to keep their elderly patients alive.
    Around the hospital, people are also struggling to restore order in their lives.
    In fact, a wedding boom has taken hold among the city's few remaining younger residents.
    Leila is helping marry off her brother, she says that weddings offer a break from their troubles.
    "There are many weddings here among young people between age 18 and 23. I think maybe because there is not enough entertainment and a wedding is one of them," she says.
    The young couple hold their ceremony in accordance with Chechen traditions. Women are in the kitchen, men are at the table, and the bride is not allowed to come to the groom until the third day of celebrations. In the end, the guests gather for traditional dances, bringing some rare festive spirit to an otherwise devastated community.
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