Heavily armed security forces are reported to have raided Kadi-Yurt, a Chechen village near the border with Daghestan, detaining ‘at least 50’ individuals. 

Chechen opposition Telegram channels 1ADAT and Niysoo on Wednesday announced that a raid had taken place in the village, with 1ADAT claiming that 50–60 people were detained in what they termed ‘mopping-up operations’. 

Footage published online appeared to show armoured vehicles entering the village and blocking the road entering it, with others showing security forces entering houses. 

Ibragim Yangulbayev, head of the Chechen public movement 1ADAT and the corresponding Telegram channel, told OC Media that the raid began at around 17:00. 

‘Residents and their friends contacted us and said that raids with military equipment were currently taking place in the village of Kadi-Yurt’, said Yangulbayev. He stated that the reason for the raid was ‘religious ideology’, as Sufism is considered the only permissible form of Islam in Chechnya. 

Yangulbayev claimed that the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov had planned to visit the village, and so weapons were collected, and the phones of many local residents were checked and ‘blocked’ to prevent them from filming or contacting others.

‘In the end, Kadyrov did not come, [so] some [of the people detained] were sent to Kadyrov, some were detained in illegal prisons, all were taken to Grozny’, claimed Yangulbayev. 

Security and military forces had left the village by 21:00, but no information has yet been made public regarding those detained. 

‘Right now, nothing is known about what happened to these people. We are waiting for what information will come’, said Yangulbayev. ‘Relatives are waiting for their loved ones. Some of the abductees were released during the raid, and in the end, about fifty to sixty people were taken away.’

Neither Chechnya’s Interior Ministry nor Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov have yet commented on the events. 

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