Gatayeva, who had served as a young field nurse for the separatist forces in the First Chechen War, opened-up a makeshift orphanage for street children in 1996. After the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999, for a period of time she had operated her orphanage in a refugee camp in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia; she was forced to return to destroyed Grozny after electricity and water were cut off from the camp after the ascent of Murat Zyazikov in 2002.