|
NAZRAN,
Russia -- A group of Chechen refugees are continuing a hunger strike in protest
at fighting in the troubled republic.
Two
Russian servicemen were killed and 17 were wounded from rebel attacks on
Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. The hunger strike began on June 14,
with two dozen protesters demanding Moscow remove its troops from the war-torn
area.
The
protesters, including four children, set up a tent between two refugee camps in
the southern republic of Ingushetia. ''I want to go home, but I don't want to go
to a home where there is a war,'' 12-year-old Khasena Meizhidova said. ''I'll go
without food as long as my mother does.''
Chechnya
declared its independence from the Russian Federation in 1991 to form a Muslim
state. Moscow refuses to acknowledge Chechnya as a separate nation. Russian
troops entered the region in 1994 and again in 1999 to subdue the separatists
behind the independence fight.
President
Vladimir Putin announced earlier this week that he would never give Chechnya its
independence, but he said he does not want the Chechen people to look upon the
Russians as outsiders. "We don't intend to act as occupiers. It's our
country. It would be counterproductive," Putin said. "We understand
that perfectly. We don't intend to carry out repression. Nobody needs
that."
Activists
asked the protestors to end the strike for the sake of their health, but they
refused. Forty-five year old Koka Khachukayeva said she is ready to die of
hunger if it will bring peace. ''We are already being killed, and we want people
to hear us. We have no other means except a hunger strike.''
|
