Baku-Rostov highway bombing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Baku-Rostov highway bombing was an incident which occurred on near Shami-Yurt, Chechnya, on October 29, 1999. The Russian aircraft carried out a rocket attack on a large convoy of refugees heading into Ingushetia using a "safe exit" route, killing or wounding about 100 civilians.
The victims included Red Cross workers and journalists, and numerous women and children. Many of them were reportedly burned alive while trapped in their vehicles.
According to the Amnesty International report,
at the time of the Russian attacks there were no legitimate military targets in the area. Eyewitness accounts of this incident would seem to indicate that the Russian forces had deliberately targeted civilians and civilian objects, despite some of them being marked with the Red Cross emblem, in violation of international humanitarian law. [1]
The Russian authorities have officially denied responsibility for civilian casualties as a result of the attack, which happened after it was officially announced that the border would re-open following a week's closure.
