The EU External Affairs Commissioner, Mr Chris Patten, said yesterday that reports of human rights violations in Chechnya showed the urgent need to have international observers permanently based in the region.
Mr Patten said there had been an increasing number of disturbing reports suggesting widespread human rights abuses at detention camps controlled by Russian security forces.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, called for Russia to open detention camps so international observers could investigate. She voiced particular concern at the situation at the Chernokozovo detention centre 50 km north of Grozny. Escapees from the Chernokozovo camp said Russian prison guards had raped women, beaten men and women daily with iron bars and lobbed tear gas into their cells.
"Those who have escaped from there tell horrific stories of torture. We need to have access. We need to have a monitoring of the situation," Mrs Robinson said.
"It is terrible to see the distress of the civilian population, the stories of women who have been witness to rape and violence and whose menfolk have been taken away," she added.