Aishat Baimuradova, a 23-year-old woman who fled from Chechnya to Armenia with the help of human rights activists, has been found dead in Yerevan. She had been missing since 15 October, with activists fearing that she may have returned to her family against her will.
Baimuradova was found dead on Sunday night, after police received information that a woman’s body had been found in an apartment in a residential building.
According to local news outlet Shamshyan, the police were investigating the death as a murder.
Novaya Gazeta Europa has cited a human rights activist as telling Agentstvo that Baymuradova had been strangled in the early hours of 16 October, and that two unidentified suspects had been captured on CCTV footage, ‘but that they are believed to have fled to Russia’.
They added that the authorities had been searching for Baimuradova since 17 October.
According to news outlet Caucasian Knot, prior to Baimuradova’s disappearance, she had gone out to meet a friend who had social media followers with close ties to Chechen Head Ramzan Kadyrov.
Separately, Daniil Chebykin, a Russian human rights activist residing in Armenia, warned that she might have been forcefully returned to her family.
Human rights activists regularly help women and queer people affected by domestic violence or abuse flee their homes in the North Caucasus — usually to Georgia or Armenia.
In November 2023, Fatima Zurabova, an Ingush domestic abuse victim seeking asylum in Armenia, was allegedly temporarily placed in police custody after being reported missing by her uncle, who rights groups claim was allowed to meet her at the police station.
In July 2025, activists said that the family of Chechen native Laura Avtotrkhanova had attempted and failed to abduct her, despite her being under Georgian state protection after fleeing domestic abuse at home in Chechnya.
Elizaveta Chukharova
