Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis

Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Budyonnovsk_hospital_hostage_crisis".

content

Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis
Hostages released from the hospital at Budyonnovsk
Location	Stavropol Krai, Russian Federation
Date	June 14 - June 19, 1995
Attack type	Hostage crisis
Deaths	More than 140
Injured	More than 400
Perpetrator(s)	Chechen rebels led by Shamil Basayev and Aslambek Abdulkhadzhiev

v • d • e First Chechen War

1st Grozny – Dolinskoye – Khankala – 2nd Grozny – Samashki massacre – Budyonnovsk crisis – Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye crisis – Black Sea crisis – Shatoy ambush – 3rd Grozny

The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis took place from 14 June to 19 June 1995, when a group of 80 to 150 Chechen separatist fighters led by Shamil Basayev attacked the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk (pop. 100,000, often spelled Budennovsk), some 70 miles north of the border with the Russian republic of Chechnya.

1 The separatist attack
2 Hostage crisis
3 Casualties
4 Aftermath
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

The separatist attack

The separatists crossed into the Stavropol Krai concealed in military trucks supposedly transporting coffins from the war zone in Chechnya, while some others infiltrated the city in small groups earlier. At about noon of June 14 they stormed the police station, city hall and government offices, where at least 20 policemen and soldiers were killed and 21 others wounded, and the Chechen flags were raised.

Hostage crisis

After several hours, in the face of a Russian reinforcement, the separatists retreated to the residential district and seized a hospital. In the city and the hospital they took between 1,500 and 1,800 hostages, mainly civilians and including about 150 children^[1] and a number of women with newborn infants.

Location of Stavropol Krai territory on the map of Russia

Standoff

The hostage-takers issued an ultimatum threatening to kill the hostages unless their demands, including an end to the First Chechen War and beginning of direct negotiations with Chechen separatist leadership, were met. Russian President Boris Yeltsin immediately vowed to do everything possible to free the hostages, denouncing the attack as "unprecedented in cynicism and cruelty."^[2]

On June 15, Basayev demanded that journalists be let into the hospital building to conduct a press conference, but when Basayev found the Russian authorities to be too slow in granting his demands, he ordered six hostages killed (three helicopter pilots, two police officers and an official of military registration and enlistment office). Only after these journalists were passed into the hospital. Fearing for their lives, the hospital staff helped other policemen and pilots disguise themselves in civilian clothes and to appear committed to the hospital by changing the hospital records.^{citation needed}

Chechen commanders enforced firm discipline among their men and reported to hostages that they will strictly punish subordinates for the least attempt at any violence. A member of the Chechen force who was found to be threatening the hostages while under influence of narcotics was immediately shot.^{citation needed} The Russians attempted various tactics to break the standoff, from threatening to execute 2,000 Chechen civilians to using Basayev's brother to talk him out of it.^[3]

Russian attacks

After several days of siege, the Russian MVD and FSB OSNAZ special forces tried to storm the hospital compound at dawn on the fourth day, meeting fierce resistance. A woman connected to artificial respiration apparatus died during the assault when the electricity to the hospital was disconnected. After many hours of fighting wherein more than 30 hostages were killed, unable to avoid the grenades the Russians were throwing in through the shot-out windows, a ceasefire was agreed on and 227 hostages were released.

A second Russian attempt to take control of the hospital few hours later also failed and so did another one later, resulting in more casualties killed in crossfire. Russian authorities accused the Chechens of using the hostages as human shields. As in the case of other major Russian hostage crises, the troops were blamed for killing more hostages than rebels.

Yeltsin's human rights adviser Sergei Kovalev described the scene:[1]

In half an hour the hospital was burning, and it was not until the next morning that we found out what happened there as a result of this shooting. I saw with my own eyes pieces of human flesh stuck to the walls and the ceiling, and burned corpses, and two demolished surgery rooms, and a burned intensive care unit, and those hostages who were throwing themselves at us as their saviors: "Ah, Kovalyov came! You won't leave us, will you? Maybe then we'll survive?"

Resolution of the crisis

On June 18, negotiations between Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Shamil Basayev led to a compromise which became a turning point for the First Chechen War. In exchange for the hostages, the Russian government agreed to halt military actions in Chechnya and begin a series of negotiations:^[4]

Statement of the Government of the Russian Federation.

To release the hostages who have been held in Budenovsk, the Government of Russian Federation:
1. Guarantees an immediate cessation of combat operations and bombings in the territory of Chechnya from 05 AM, 19 June 1995. Along with this action, all the children, women, elderly, sick and wounded, who have been taken hostage, should be released.
2. Appoints a delegation, authorised to negotiate the terms of the peaceful settlement of conflict in Chechnya, with V.A. Mihailov as a leader and A.I. Volsky as a deputy. Negotiations will start immediately on the 18th June 1995, as soon as the delegation arrives in Grozny. All the other issues, including a question of withdrawal of the armed forces, will be peacefully resolved at the negotiating table.
3. After all the other hostages are released, provides Sh. Basayev and his group with transport and secures their transportation from the scene to the Chechen territory.
4. Delegates the authorised representatives of the Government of the Russia Federation A. V. Korobeinikov and V. K. Medvedickov to deliver this Statement to Sh. Basayev.

Prime Minister of the Russia Federation
V. S. Chernomirdin
18.06.95
20:35

The just-released hostages were especially angered by Boris Yeltsin's order to use force against the separatists.^[5] Yeltsin meanwhile had gone to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the summit of the Group of Eight was being held. After meeting with Yeltsin, the seven condemned violence on both sides of the Chechen conflict.

On June 19, most of the hostages were released, and Basayev's group, under cover of 120 volunteer hostages (including 16 journalists and nine State Duma deputies), departed for, and uneventfully reached, the Chechen village of Zandak near Chechnya's border with Dagestan. After this, the remaining hostages were released, Basayev, accompanied by some of the journalists, moved to village of Dargo, where he was welcomed as a hero.

The raid is widely seen as having been the turning point in the war. It boosted the morale among the Chechens, shocked the Russian public, and discredited the Russian government. The initiated negotiations gave the separatists the critically needed time to rest and rearm. Until the end of the conflict, the Russian forces never regained the initiative.

Casualties

According to official figures, 147 people were killed and more than 400 were wounded in the incident.^[6] At least 105 citizens of Budyonovsk died at the result of the attack. At least 11 Russian policemen and minimum of 14 soldiers were also killed^[1] and 19 wounded, not including special forces servicemen (the elite anti-terrorist Alpha Group suffered at least three killed and six wounded). Basayev's group suffered 11 killed; their corpses went back to Chechnya in a special freezer truck.

About 160 buildings in the town were destroyed or damaged.^[7] Many of the former hostages suffer from various forms of psychological wounds and traumas, and are being treated at a new facility in Budyonnovsk.

Aftermath

Reacting to the perceived inept handling of the hostage situation, the lower house of the Russian parliament, the Duma, voted 241 to 72 in favour of an motion of no confidence of the government led by Viktor Chernomyrdin. The vote, however, was widely seen as purely symbolic, and the government did not step down. Still, the debacle cost both the security minister Sergei Stepashin and interior minister Viktor Yerin their jobs.^[8]

Two weeks after the raid, Shamil Basayev expressed regrets about the way the attack had turned out, and that he and his men "had turned into beasts."^{citation needed}

In the years following the hostage-taking, about 30 of the attackers, including Basayev (in 2006) and Aslambek Abdulkhadzhiev (in 2002) have died, and 19 were convicted for the attack by the Stavropol territorial court after 1999 (despite the official amnesty following the end of the first war in 1996). As of June 2005 about 40 were still wanted in Russia.^{citation needed}