It started back in September 2005 when 18 children from the Chechen village of Staroshchedrinskaya were hospitalized with signs of poisoning, and then a month later 8 more children from the same school were hospitalized with the same symptoms. In December 2005 13 more children from the Chechen Shelkovskaya district were hospitalized with very similar symptoms. Since December more than 50 other children have developed the same symptoms, including children in the Chechen villages of Shelkozavodskaya and Starogladovskaya. The symptoms are fatigue, asphyxia, headaches, convulsions and hysteria. Some children also reported memory loss and hallucinations. All most all of the victims are young girls, and a few others are female teachers.

Blood samples from the children were sent to the Russian Forensic Investigation Bureau. Experts from the Forensic Investigation Bureau told the press back in December that the girl????????s tests showed that radioactive elements were found in the blood of some children. The next day the experts from the Forensic Investigation Bureau said that the children were poisoned by ethylene glycol. Then abruptly, the Director of the Forensic Investigation Bureau reversed what his colleagues had said and told the press that the children had no signs of poisoning and the children were suffering from nervous exhaustion and the symptoms were being brought on by mass hysteria. The doctors of the Moscow backed Chechen government claim that the whole episode was caused by the high level of stress and anxiety of experiencing a bloody war that has lasted for most of their young lives.

Dr. Leonid Roshal, who is a respected pediatrician in Moscow, and who negotiated with the Chechen terrorists who were involved in the taking of hostages in the Moscow Theater, and also was a negotiator in the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, last month disagreed with the official findings. Russian news agencies quoted him as saying, ???????I don????????t think that it????????s a nervous illness; it is necessary to continue the investigation. The fact that no chemical agents were found in the organisms of the children is connected to the fact that we don????????t know the methods for determining them.???????
Unfortunately, 6-8 months later, the girls are still suffering the symptoms and many of them have been hospitalized. Psychological treatment of the children is showing no results and many of them still have convulsions, panic attacks and asphyxia. Many of the girls convulse and grab their throats because they cannot breath, and then they scream in terror.

The parents of some of the ailing Chechen children plan to refuse the help of Russian doctors since they, the parents and many Chechens, believe that the children were poisoned by the Russian military or security services.

For the sake of the children it is time that an international organization, such as the UN World Health Organization, or any other international health organization conducts an independent examination of the children. Given that the children are not recovering, and that there is so much distrust on both sides of the issue, outside medical help is drastically needed. Putting aside the politics of the Chechen situation, after all that the Chechen children have gone through, this is the least that can be done for them.