browseA Decade of War in Chechnya by Heidi Bradner
Saturday 5 February to Sunday 30 March 2005
On New Year's Eve 1994, Russian forces invaded Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, igniting a fierce resistance that forced them to withdraw two years later. In 1999, they invaded a second time. Years after promising that this military approach would bring stability, law and order, the only clear result is the growth of a new kind of terrorism outside Chechnya's borders.
The seizing and deaths of innocent children and adults on the first day of school in Beslan, the seizing of the Moscow theatre, the simultaneous downing of two domestic Russian flights by suicide bombers have shocked the world.
After ten years, the conflict, far from stabilizing, is spreading. Ten years ago, half a million people lived in Grozny, Chechens and Russians. It was a flourishing modern city. It had universities, institutes, suburbs and oil refineries. Today it is a second Stalingrad, yet it still home for many who have no other place to live and work. In these photographs I have tried to give a human face to all the victims of this war: the soldiers; the ethnic Russian residents; and, of course, the Chechens themselves in the rubble of their country, victims of human rights abuses and atrocities, who have little recourse to help, justice or any political and economic solution that might usher in a lasting peace. Heidi Bradner