ICRC Hospital of Novye Atagi - The Choice of Novye Atagi

The Choice of Novye Atagi

A mission of evaluation of the ICRC left Geneva and arrived in the city of Naltchik in Kabardino-Balkaria on August 18. Three possible locations were discussed at this stage: the border between Ingushetia and Chechnya, Grozny, and the villages south of Grozny.

The mission left to the field the following day on 19 August. In Ingushetia the local authorities proposed a location to establish the hospital. The mission left then to Chechnya and returned to Nazran on 21 August proposing the site of Novye Atagi. This village is located in Chechnya, approximately 20 kilometres in the South of Grozny.

The village was considered a neutral place, the location where the negotiations between the Chechen resistance movement and the Russian authorities were held. The representatives of the village had guaranteed the safety of ICRC. They had also explained the local tradition of protection of guests. It says that an host lost his honours if his guests undergo some aggression while under his roof.

The head of the mission of evaluation managed to obtain the support by the delegation for his proposal. It was then transmitted to the headquarters in Geneva, which, reticent at the beginning ends up agreeing. The option “Ingushetia” was thus abandoned with the explanation that the Chechen fighters would not be in safety on Russian territory. It was necessary to apologise to the Ingush authorities for not adopting their proposal.

This decision seemed hurried to certain staff members. It appeared to them that the possibility of obtaining guarantees of safety on behalf of the Russian authorities for the transport and the treatment of wounded in Ingushetia had not been sufficiently explored. They recalled the Afghan context in which wounded mujahideen were transported to Kabul to the hospital of the ICRC under its protection. It appeared strange to them to install an hospital in an area as volatile as Chechnya on mainly local criteria of safety. They underlined that an hospital is a heavy structure, difficult to evacuate quickly and discretely in the event of danger.

From the beginning, the hospital was presented fulfilling two roles: beyond its main function of providing medical care, it was to show an example of what is medical neutrality in a context in which hospitals are more often a target than a protected place. The number of expatriates present in Chechnya until then was very limited. With the opening of the hospital, this number exploded literally. The policy of safety was now based on a maximum visibility of the ICRC activities.