Deprivation of Drinking Water

In the autumn of 1994, Russia attacked the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under the name of a puppet opposition, and on 11 December 1994 the Russian army openly invaded the republic. The occupiers left Chechens without drinking water.

Russian pilots and artillerymen more than once destroyed substations and the water supply system in Grozny, the capital of Ichkeria, leaving the townspeople without water^[1][2].

Russian servicemen fired from armored personnel carriers and helicopters at Chechens who were going for water (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")^[3][4].

On 31 January 1995, the occupiers shelled Samashki, a village in the west of Ichkeria, from tanks and helicopters, leaving the Chechens in the village without water (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")^[5]. In February 1995, Russian artillery shelled and aircraft bombed Argun, a town east of Grozny. Chechens in Argun hid in basements and went out for water only between seven and nine in the morning, while the crews of Russian helicopters fired at passers-by in the streets^[3].

During the assault on Grozny in February 1995, Russian servicemen in the Katayama settlement within the city limits shot 28-year-old Dzhenchuraeva with the cannon of an armored personnel carrier as she was carrying water. Her brother tried to carry the body home and survived, although the occupiers wounded him in the shoulder. Lipkan Bazaeva, a teacher from Grozny and the wife of the murdered woman's cousin, told the public tribunal of the Russian Glasnost Foundation in Prague in May 1996: "She went for water, believing that a woman would not be killed"^[4].

On 7 April 1995, the Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (predecessors of today's Rosgvardia) and OMON troops (police special forces) stormed Samashki. On 8 April, Russian soldiers searched houses in the village and set fire to most of them (see: "Total Destruction of Infrastructure"). On the morning of 8 April, Russian servicemen drove Yuzbek Shovkhalov, an elder of Samashki, into the basement of his house on Kooperativnaya Street, and the basement filled with smoke. In April 1995, the elder told the observer mission of Russian human rights organizations how he ran out of there with burns: "I run, thinking, at least there was a flask of water standing there. No, they had carried it out, they're drinking the water. They're all sitting on the other side of the street, sitting, laughing, cracking sunflower seeds"^[5][6]. On 10 April, a Chechen woman named Karnukaeva of Rabochaya Street told the mission about soldiers in the neighbors' yard, where she had hidden on 8 April: "They say to the old woman: 'Is this your drinking water?' She says: 'Yes, it's clean water.' 'Go on, you drink it first.' She took a mug, drank some water, then they drank themselves and spilled it, didn't leave a drop. They turned over all those barrels and flasks and poured out the water. In case anything happened, if there was a fire, so that no one could put it out. That's probably what they were thinking"^[5].

By 12 April 1995, Russian servicemen had shot through the water barrels in Samashki, and the Chechens in the village had nothing to keep water in^[1]. The diary of a Memorial observer records on 14 April that the village was receiving no water, gas or electricity. That day, the command of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs eased entry into Samashki, and Kosov, an adviser to the president of Russian-controlled Ingushetia, organized the delivery of bread and water to the village^[7].

In the spring of 1996, a year after Russian troops captured Grozny, there was no water in the city's apartments, and there were two to three liters per person a day. The townspeople walked 5-10 kilometers for water and took it from the dirty Sunzha river, which flows through the city^[4]. In August 1996, Russian pilots bombed Grozny, and artillerymen shelled the city (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks"). A bulletin of the International Committee of the Red Cross of 2 September 1996 says that after these strikes all 80 thousand people in Grozny were left without drinking water, and at the end of August Red Cross engineers reached the city's only working pumping station and began distributing water, three liters per person a day^[2].

In August 1996, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Grozny from the occupiers, forcing Russia to the negotiating table^[8]. On 31 August 1996, peace agreements were signed in Khasavyurt (see: "Sham Treaties")^[9]. On 31 December 1996, the last Russian troops left the republic^[6].