Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 23, 1994 TAG: 9412230162
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GROZNY, RUSSIA LENGTH: Medium
At least 24 civilians were killed in heavy bombing on Thursday, including an American photographer. Panicked residents ran for cover, and many fled for the mountains as the exodus from Grozny swelled.
A dead man's charred body sat inside his burned car, his hands still clutching the wheel. Blood stained the snow in a park where a woman's body had been. Anguished Chechens raised their hands in prayer over another body nearby.
Coming after three straight nights of bombing attacks, the first daylight raid on Thursday was even more intense as Russia showed that it intended to complete an operation that has become a debacle because of strong resistance, turmoil in the Russian military command and overwhelming public opposition. One commander refused to advance on Grozny or fire on civilians.
Russian jets raided Grozny again before dawn today, the Interfax news agency reported. No details were available immediately.
``It is impossible - this is terrible,'' wailed Larisa Vozlublennaya, a Russian, outside her bomb-damaged apartment building. ``Who are they trying to kill?''
The Chechens remained defiant. Workers repaired power and telephone lines near Freedom Square shortly after an air raid, and volunteers climbed into a truck with grenade launchers.
President Dzhokhar Dudayev issued a televised appeal for a holy war to fight ``the satanic methods of Russia,'' Echo Moscow radio station reported.
Dudayev has threatened to hang a Russian prisoner of war for every Russian air raid. But there was no evidence he had carried out the threat, made this week, despite four bombing raids on Grozny since Monday.
Chechens hold as many as 20 Russian soldiers who were captured Dec. 11, the first day of Russia's offensive.
The corpses of several people who had rushed out to help the wounded lay in a pile after a warplane fired a rocket at them.
One of those killed was a 28-year-old American free-lance photographer, Cynthia Elbaum. A friend of the victim said she was from New York City. A British colleague wept as he helped Chechens wrap her remains in a carpet.
Russian authorities are bogged down in the worst quagmire for the military since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. They accused the Chechens of faking air attacks Thursday by blowing up their own buildings.
Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Kulikov insisted the military was doing everything it could to avoid the loss of life.
President Boris Yeltsin worked in the Kremlin with aides on ``proposals for a peaceful settlement,'' the ITAR-Tass news agency said. Yeltsin rejected Parliament's call for him to appear before a joint session on Saturday, but the news agency said he would address the nation within days.
by CNB