Mystery seizures strike Chechen women
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 11 March 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article350567.ece

Young girls in war-ravaged Chechnya are complaining of
a mystery illness, stoking suspicions that Russia has
used the republic as a testing and dumping ground for
nerve gas and other poisons.

Yesterday, it was reported that four women and two
teenage girls have been taken to hospital with the
symptoms, bringing the number of people to fall ill
with the condition since mid-December to almost 100.

The symptoms are extreme: blackouts, fits, breathing
problems, nosebleeds, crazed laughter and
hallucinations.

Some of the girls who have been afflicted have had
prolonged violent fits and spasms up to 25 times a day
and have become so disorientated that they could not
recognise their own parents.

The authorities and some, but not all, of the medical
professionals who have studied the problem have
concluded that the mainly female victims are suffering
from "mass hysteria". A psychological breakdown,
prompted by more than a decade of separatist war which
they argue has led to chronic stress, is only now
beginning to manifest itself, aggravated by Chechnya's
poverty, extreme hopelessness and militarisation.

But the children's parents and some of the doctors who
originally treated the girls beg to differ. They
believe a cover-up is under way and are convinced that
the symptoms have been caused by chemical weapons
allegedly used or stored by both sides in the brutal
conflict.

The problem came to the authorities' attention on 16
December when schoolgirls in several villages lost
consciousness, the prelude to what turned out to be an
unending succession of fits and trauma. A handful of
boys fell sick too but the vast majority of sufferers
were girls or female teachers from at least five
different schools.

The authorities' first reaction was to say that they
thought the victims had been poisoned and a criminal
investigation was opened. The schools were closed
pending an inquiry and it was suggested that the
lavatories were likely to be the prime source of the
poisoning and that the schools' water supply had
somehow become contaminated.

That investigation was swiftly dropped, however, along
with the poison theory, when a series of specialists,
some of whom had flown in from Moscow, said the
disorder was psychological. The doctors blamed the
media for triggering more cases of the condition with
alarmist reports.

Treatment for what is apparently a psychological
disorder such as intensive music therapy has proved
largely ineffective though. In fact, the only medical
success in treating the condition is shrouded in
mystery.

A group of the worst sufferers were taken to a
hospital outside Chechnya where doctors injected them
with substances that alleviated many of the worst
symptoms but which caused the girls to put on huge
amounts of weight. The doctors have not said what was
in the syringes.

Blood samples from five of the sufferers have also
revealed the inexplicable presence of ethylene glycol,
a toxic substance used in anti-freeze.

Moscow has remained silent. Anna Politkovskaya, a
Russian independent journalist specialising in
Chechnya, is convinced that Moscow has used the
republic as a weapons laboratory.

"It is now 2006. Behind us are 11 years of war with
short breaks for clearing mines and unexploded
shells," she wrote in the bi-weekly Novaya Gazeta.
"But the ideology remains: as before, people who have
the misfortune to live in Chechnya are seen as
biomaterial for experiments."
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More about Chechnya at:
http://www.islamawareness.net/Persecution/Chechnya/