One military spokesman retorted that Russia was planning to clear four refugee corridors leading to the neighbouring regions of Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia and the Stavropol area on Friday. But this announcement was met with cynicism by human rights activists. Even if the road to Ingushetia is reopened, conditions there will offer refugees only scant relief. One of the poorest regions of the former Soviet Union, Ingushetia is wholly unequipped to cope with the influx of refugees. Lyudmila Gendel of the human rights organisation Memorial, who has recently returned from the region, said the Ingush people were feeding the refugees out of their own pockets.
Bread is provided by the state, but any supplementary food has to be donated by local people.
They left Chechnya when it was still warm and were not able to bring any winter clothes. They have been housed in summer tents. Many people are suffering from pneumonia, others have contracted tuberculosis. Several newborn babies have died from hypothermia. There is a terrible shortage of medicine.