10. Those interviewed confirmed that the soldiers insisted that the exchange include wounded or dead soldiers only from that military compound. The interviewees were particularly disturbed by the fact that the soldiers did not count wounded or dead soldiers from other compounds as valid for exchange.
They did of course accept these «foreign» soldiers, although they continued to insist that their «own» soldiers must be brought in. They seemed convinced that the Chechens would continue in the search for Russian soldiers.
There were a large number of corpses in the area due to the fact that on August 9, a large unit of the MD, moving from the west on Rostov-Baku Road and entering the city on Shatonskaya route were annihilated by Gelaev’s detachment. Dead bodies remained in the area through the third week of August, even after the «Minutki» region was taken over by troops from the MIA. In conjunction with the summer heat, the lack of water and anti-bacterial agents, and the absence of a reliable system for transporting the bodies elsewhere, there was the potential threat of an epidemic.