(23 Dec 1996) Eng/Russ/Nat
When the Red Cross was forced to evacuate its personnel from Chechnya last week after the murder of six hospital staff, they left behind many people who depended on the agency for survival.
Patients at the ICRC hospital where the murders took place are not receiving the attention they require and local staff are not receiving the direction they need to help care for patients properly.
And life for ordinary citizens will only get more difficult without the Red Cross, one of the few aid organisations in the region.
Meanwhile officials from the agency are deciding what their role will be in a region now proven dangerous not just for civilians and soldiers, but for aid workers as well.
The Red Cross compound in Noviye Atagi in southern Chechnya, opened just a few months ago, is almost deserted after the murder of six foreign aid workers by unknown gunmen.
The offices and the living quarters where the murders took place have been sealed off by authorities.
A few Chechens guard the front gate, but all the foreign staff have been evacuated from the region, not risking a repeat of the horror of December 17th, when masked gunmen broke into the compound and brutally shot dead six people.
Only the hospital is still functioning.
Just 10 patients, men and children, are left - although it can hold up to 100 patients.
All women patients left the hospital, many in shock, after the murders.
Patients say conditions have deteriorated since the expatriate staff evacuated five days ago.
SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"After the doctors left this place has become like a cemetery. There is absolutely nothing here."
SUPER CAPTION: Suleiman Khaipayev, patient at RC hospital
Hospital staff say they are not qualified to handle many of the problems facing the patients, but try to make do in the absence of the Red Cross doctors.
SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"It was much easier with them here because they would look at all the patients and explain to us what to do with each patient during the course of the day. And we would then take care of them according to the doctor's instructions. But now we have to decide ourselves what to do. And we take risks. Of course the situation is now more difficult and complicated."
SUPER CAPTION: Aisan Sadayeva, Nurse at Red Cross hospital
At the Red Cross headquarters in Grozny one can see what a hasty departure the Red Cross made.
The base is like a ghost town.
Just a few Chechen employees, drivers and security guards, continue to watch over the compound waiting for their bosses to return.
A fleet of expensive four-wheel-drive vehicles stand idle.
In Chechnya's destroyed capital Grozny, many ordinary citizens' lives were made a bit easier with the services that the Red Cross supplied.
The Red Cross offered free medical attention.
For Asya Masayeva that meant a lot.
Her father was treated in the Red Cross hospital where the murders took place.
He is now alive and well and lives with relatives in neighbouring Ingushetia.
But she and her mother Tamara have remained behind in Grozny guarding their damaged family home.
Tamara, like many, can't understand why someone would want to kill such innocent people.
SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"I'm so sad that they have been killed. They helped us and gave us medicine. That did everything for us. And now they've been killed. Why? It is so sad I can't even speak."
SUPER CAPTION: Tamara Masayeva, Grozny resident
They say their lives will only be harder without the help of the Red Cross.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
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