North Caucasus: Chechnya convoy supplies distributed

UNHCR and its partners in Chechnya are currently distributing the more than 60 tons of aid supplies brought in Tuesday in our second relief convoy to Grozny. Most of the aid will be distributed to public soup kitchens, bakeries, hospitals and other distribution points, but some direct individual assistance is also under way for needy people in Grozny.

Working with staff from EMERCOM, the Russian Emergency Ministry, and local officials, UNHCR monitors have helped identify 280 extremely vulnerable people in Grozny who require direct deliveries of assistance to their homes. These are old and infirm people, as well as children, wounded people and others who cannot make it to the soup kitchens and distribution points that have been set up in the devastated city. Many of these people continue to live in terrible conditions - often in cold and dark cellars because their homes have been damaged or destroyed.

Four truckloads of relief items, including food and bedding, were delivered to Urus Martan, where there are some 24,500 internally displaced people. The rest is being distributed in Grozny in coordination with the mayor's office and EMERCOM.

UNHCR and its partners are already looking at the possibility of another convoy to Chechnya from our base of operations in Stavropol, southern Russia, although no details are yet available. In all, UNHCR has sent 61 convoys to the North Caucasus since mid-September. Fifty of them have been to Ingushetia, which hosts most of the more than 200,000 internally displaced people from Chechnya in neighbouring republics.