BLOODY WALLPAPER

RUSSIA. Chechnya. Grozny. March 31, 1995. A Russian Army soldier inspects the bodies of Chechen civilians killed during the winter fights and exhumed for identification.

In Chechnya, mass graves containing hundreds of corpses have been uncovered since the beginning of the Chechen wars in 1994. As of June 2008, there were 57 registered locations of mass graves in Chechnya. According to Amnesty International, thousands may be buried in unmarked graves.

Russia’s general policy to the Chechen mass graves is to not exhume them.

In 2003, residents and human rights campaigners alleged that fragments of blown-up bodies were being found all over the war-ruined region. The critics alleged that rather than put a stop to the human rights violations, the military appeared to be doing its best to hide them. Families were reported to be paying ransom to Russian troops for bodies.

It is not unusual for reconstruction crews in Grozny to run across collections of bodies, and some of them have been quietly moved to make room for the rebuilding. According to the pro-Moscow Chechen government, 4,825 people disappeared, without a trace, in the republic from 1994 to July 2008.