December 12, 1999
Web posted at: 8:37 p.m. EST (0137 GMT)

In this story: Chechens wary of safe passage pledge Envoy: No plans to storm Grozny Refugee: If not for kids I would die RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Fewer than 100 Grozny residents have fled via a new corridor out of the besieged Chechen capital, Russian news agencies say, while Russian forces have turned their attacks on rebel fortifications in the southern mountains.

Some 70 Chechens turned up at the Russian end of a corridor southwest of Grozny, RIA news agency said Sunday. Meanwhile Russian helicopters and planes dropped leaflets on the capital urging others to make their way out of the city.

Russian officials have claimed that Chechen militants were keeping civilians in the capital to use them as human shields. But refugees have denied the charge, saying those who stayed in Grozny were too old or infirm to move.

Following Western criticism, the Russian army delayed an ultimatum that Grozny civilians leave the city by Saturday or become a fair target during a threatened all-out onslaught. The Russian military said there would be no airstrikes at least until midnight Sunday.

RIA said the new safety corridor, opened by Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu on Saturday, would operate daily between 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and 3 p.m. (1200 GMT). Another corridor had been established earlier on the northwestern outskirts of Grozny.

The first deputy chief of the general staff, Gen. Valery Manilov, told NTV television the army would guarantee the safety of anyone willing to use corridors.

But amid reports that Russian attacks have injured or killed many civilians, Chechens regarded the promise of safe passage with great skepticism.

"I don't believe in these safe corridors," said one injured Chechen in a hospital. "In the past they've declared them, then shot at refugee columns passing through. There's still too little trust and too much fear."

The rebel-appointed mayor of Grozny was quoted as saying most civilians were too exhausted to move out. "There are up to 50,000 civilians here, most of them physically incapable of making a long journey," the Interfax news agency quoted Lechi Dudayev as saying in a report from Grozny.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Russia's future

Russia's envoy in Chechnya, Nikolai Koshman, made clear there were no plans for a frontal attack on the city.

The Russian military said Grozny had not been bombed for several days and accused rebels of using the lull to build fortifications and plant mines.

Col. Gennady Alyokhin, a Russian military spokesman, said rebel fighters were building defenses on strategic heights on the outskirts of Grozny, planting mines in the city streets, and installing machine guns on building roofs.

However, he also said that some rebel groups were fleeing Grozny for the rugged mountains of southern Chechnya. Russian forces staged air assaults on rebels Sunday in the largely deserted southern region, where rebels have a network of bases and enjoy strong local support, a military statement said Sunday.

Interfax quoted a top military commander, Gen. Gennady Troshev, as saying troops were preparing to strike the rebels in southern Chechnya from Dagestan, a Russian region to the east.

Russian forces on Sunday also kept up air and artillery attacks on other Chechen towns and villages, sending refugees fleeing west to the Russian republic of Ingushetia or south across the mountains to Georgia.

"We are simply being annihilated," mourned Maria Khamidova, a refugee from the village of Itun-Kale, about 40 miles south of Grozny. "If it weren't for the kids, I would just lie down and die."

Khamidova, walking toward Georgia with her two young daughters, said her husband was killed several days ago when a Russian bomb hit their home.

After a concerted campaign of more than two months, Russian troops control most of the populated lowlands in central and northern Chechnya.

The Russians have struggled to resettle about 200,000 refugees into Russian-controlled areas of the territory, which effectively has been semi-independent since it fought Moscow to a standstill in a 1994-1996 war.

Russia began its current campaign in September, after Chechen rebels twice raided the Russian republic of Dagestan. Moscow also blames the rebels for a series of fatal bombings in Russian cities, though the militants have denied responsibility.

Correspondent Matthew Chance and Reuters contributed to this report.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.