On July 14, a mass fight between Afghans and Chechens took place in a refugee camp near an Austrian town of Traiskirchen.

According to local police, the fight was provoked by a result of a football match. However, in the opinion of police officers the football game just only exacerbated the relations between the two ethnic groups, which permanently exchanged blows before. This time the mass fight was unavoidable.

The Afghan and Chechen inhabitants of the refugee camp initially provoked a mass scuffle inside the camp, and later the fighters moved to a local railway station where the scuffle came up with a bang. Both sides used bats and steel bars, the youngsters threw stones. Totally about 60 people were involved, 30 on each side.

As a result, 6 people were injured and 29 were detained by the police. Later all detained persons whose identities were established were released and delivered to the camp.

It is not the first mass fight of ethnic Chechens inhabiting the refugee camps in Europe. In summer 2003, there was a mass scuffle between Chechens and Moldavians in the same Traiskirchen. One man was killed and 32 injured. The refugees were pacified by a special gendarme unit of more than 100 men. After the massacre the Austrian Minister of Interior issued an order to expel all Chechens from Traiskirchen, and distribute them among all Austrian Lands (except Vienna) “so that they could not create consolidated communities”. Nevertheless the Chechen refugees still live in Traiskirchen. On the eve of 2008, a gang of Chechens beat up a young Austrian couple in a dancing club of Austrian Villach. The boy and girl were admitted to a local hospital, and Chechens were arrested.

After this incident Joerg Haider, a famous ultra right-wing politician and Governor of Austrian Land of Carinthia, urged the Federal authorities to close the country for the Chechen refugees. He said: “Chechens have an excessive potential of violence”.

In this connection the European press reminded about a fight in French Nice that shocked everybody when a few Chechens successfully repelled an attack of a big group of Morocco Arabs in a local disco. The newspapers wrote that “Chechens demonstrated a well-organized hand-to-hand fighting and were ready to fight against the local “toughie” in advance. Police officers confiscated knives, knuckles, straight razors and metal bars from them”.

These numerous incidents generated in Europe a clear opinion about the Chechen refugees, and the authorities of the countries where they reside endeavor to do away with them but not solve their problems. In so doing they forget that there are many rowdies everywhere while real refugees are first of all old men, women and children.

Few people know that local residents of abovementioned Traiskirchen held a demonstration protesting against swinish living conditions of the refugees. They said: “We take care of our dogs better than our Government – of these people”.

For example, News Agency Grozny-Inform describes the life of Chechen refugees in Poland as follows: “…The living conditions in the places of their temporary accommodation are disgusting. Rooms are overcrowded. People even do not have chairs to sit on, so they mostly sit on window sills in the day-time. Even lobbies in the refugee camps are overcrowded. People live in kitchens, gyms, TV rooms. Refugees have to just step on each other and over those who try to rest ling on lobby floors. .You need to see it to believe that it is the truth. The people who live in these conditions for years step over all tolerable and intolerable bounds in their relations. They rail at each other at the slightest pretext that never happened to the Vainakh people even in the most severe time”.

Meanwhile The Chechen authorities pay close attention to the return of Chechen refugees back to their Homeland.

Lerma Kaplanov, Chief, the Refugees and Displaced Persons Department of the Chechen Republic Migration Service, said that the Department makes efforts to provide for the return of refugees from foreign countries where their population totals more that 200,000. He emphasized that refugees return to the Homeland voluntarily. As of today, according to official statistics, only 355 people returned.

As per approximate estimates, more than 100,000 refugees live in the European countries but for the CIS. The emigration from Chechnya is still in progress. 40-50 people cross the Polish-Belorussian border practically every day. A majority of refugees lives in Austria, according to official statistics last year their population in this country was 16,000. Approximately the same number of refugees is in France, their number in Norway, Sweden and Denmark is not less.

The return of refugees to Chechnya is supervised by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Early this year he promised that all families left without shelter due to two wars will get their own dwelling, and called Chechens to return home.

May be, Chechens striving to free Europe should think about it. Speaking gently, nobody waits them in Europe with open arms. And at home where even the walls help, the situation has got moving already.