“Radio Sveriges” has reported that a family of Chechen asylum seekers living in the city of Sundsvall, Sweden, is facing forced deportation to the Russian occupied Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch believe that the family should not return due to the high risk to their safety.

According to the report, Tamila Tankaeva, her 15-year old daughter Madina, who suffers from Down’s Syndrome, and her adult son, Askhab fled the Russian occupied Chechen Republic of Ichkeria due to ongoing direct threats to their lives. They have asked Sweden for asylum since 2007 but the family fears that Swedish authorities will hand them over to the bloody hands of the brutal regime.

For years, Tamila has lived in fear of having her family abducted by Russian soldiers or their local collaborators because of her husband’s political activities. These fears were realized when, six year ago Russian soldiers in masks showed up at their house in the middle of the night and abducted her husband. Four years later he was found dead in a forest. During the time that Tamila’s husband was abducted, she was beaten and stabbed and as a result was hospitalized for 63 days. This was not the first time that she was been injured by the Russian army. Six month earlier, she was tortured when she refused to say where her son was. Although Tamila did everything possible to protect her son, his turn also came. In August of 2006, armed and masked men broke into the family’s house. He was abducted, beaten and tortured. For two weeks he suffered electric shock, suffocation with plastic bags, and beatings with rifle butts. Tamila had to pay about 335,000 Rubles (roughly 8,500 Euros) to rescue her son from captivity. After that her son lived hidden with relatives until the family managed to escape to Sweden.

Tamila is currently and understandably in a very poor mental state and has even had to seek psychological help.

*Text was written by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco