GROZNY. Jan 31 (Interfax-AVN) - About 2,000 residents of Chechnya have gone missing over the 2.5 years of the anti- guerrilla operation in the troubled republic, Vakha Gakayev, head of the law and order maintenance department in the Chechen government, said on Thursday.
The figure is comprised of the people whose whereabouts are unknown to Chechen law-enforcement agencies, Gakayev told Interfax-Military News Agency. He did not rule out that some of the missing persons had managed to leave combat areas and were residing in other Russian regions or in other countries at present. At the same time, "the figure includes the dead whose bodies are not found," the official stressed.