Chechen President Alu Alkhanov on Sunday visited refugees who say they fled to a neighboring Russian region after a terrifying security service search, asking them to return home and promising a full investigation.

Residents of Borozdinovskaya village in Chechnya escaped to a field in the Dagestan region earlier this month, saying they were scared after troops detained 11 young men in a search for rebels who have fought Russian rule for a decade.

"Our task ... is to ensure stability and security, and if the people return, this will be ensured," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Alkhanov as saying.

But the refugees were not convinced.

"We can't return home -- we can't forget this fear, everything we have lived through. We're peaceful people," NTV television showed one woman living on the camp as saying.

The refugees are demanding the return of the 11 missing men.

"If they are not alive, let them return the bodies," Itar-Tass quoted one camp resident as saying.
 
Itar-Tass reported more than 230 families were living on the make-shift camp, too frightened to return to Chechnya and the house-to-house searches, known as "zachistka."

The main question surrounds what exactly happened in the village on June 4 and Alkhanov said a commission had been set up to find the answer.

A top federal official denied his forces had been involved in any search in the village that day.

"I can say with full responsibility ... that no special operation took place in Borozdinovskaya on 4 June, or indeed 3 June," Arkady Yedelev, chief of regional counter-terrorist headquarters, said on NTV.

"Everything happened as a result of operations by illegal armed groups."

Human rights groups accuse Russian troops of abducting and torturing young men caught up in such searches. Russia accuses Chechen rebels of being Islamic extremists who will stop at nothing to impose religious rule on the Muslim Caucasus region.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies June 27, 2005)