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.