Russia accused over Chechnya mass grave

Russian soldiers ride an armoured personnel carrier past protesting local residents in Grozny

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Russian authorities have literally buried evidence of extrajudicial executions in Chechnya, a human rights watchdog group says.

In its report "Burying the Evidence: The Botched Investigation into a Mass Grave in Chechnya," Human Rights Watch documents errors in Moscow's investigation into a mass grave site.

The site was discovered in late February, when 51 bodies were unearthed in Dachny, an abandoned village less than one kilometre from the main Russian military base in Chechnya.

According to the report released on Tuesday, of the 19 victims whose corpses were identified by relatives, 16 were last seen as Russian federal forces took them into custody.

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Two weeks later, the authorities buried the rest of the bodies without prior notice, and without performing adequate autopsies or collecting crucial evidence that would have helped to identify the perpetrators, the report said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is being urged to allow the U.N.'s human rights representative into Chechnya

Human Rights Watch called on United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the European Union and the United States to take advantage of high-level diplomatic meetings to urge Russia to exhume the unidentified bodies and to fully investigate allegations of human rights violations in Chechnya.

A spokesman for the Russian mission office in New York had no immediate comment on the report.

Last month, the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva adopted a resolution on Chechnya that condemned human rights violations by Russian forces and raised concern about forced disappearances, torture, and summary executions.

"The EU and the U.S. took a principled stand against impunity at the human rights commission," said Holly Carter of Human Rights Watch.

U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said that in talks Tuesday in Moscow, Annan urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to allow the U.N.'s Human Rights Rapporteur into Chechnya.