Hadidschat Gatajewa
Hadidschat Gatajewa (also Hadijat , Hadizhat Gatayeva or Khadijad Gataeva ) is a Chechen , Muslim, humanitarian activist who, together with her husband Malik, took care of many war orphans from the city of Grozny .
biography
Gatajewa, who served as a young field nurse for separatist forces in the First Chechnya War, opened a makeshift orphanage for street children in 1996. After the Second Chechen War began in 1999, she moved her orphanage to a refugee camp in the neighboring Republic of Ingushetia for this period ; however, she was forced to return to the destroyed Chechen capital Grozny after the camp's electricity and water were cut off at the time of Murat Syasikov's ascent in 2002. Eventually Gatajewa went with around 21 orphans from the Russian Federation to Kaunas , in Lithuania. On October 16, 2008, Gatajewa was reported missing after she and her husband were arrested by the Lithuanian security police in Kaunas for unspecific reasons.
On January 7, 2010, Hadidschat Gatajewa and her husband Malik were arrested by the Finnish police. The arrest was based on the Lithuanian European arrest warrant. Prior to their arrest, Gatajewa and her husband applied for political asylum in Finland.
reception
Gatajewa and her orphans were part of a 2005 documentary film "The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (Melancholian 3 huonetta)", in German: The three rooms of melancholy, by Pirjo Honkasalo. She has maintained contact with her ever since. Gatajewa's work is also shown in the 2009 book The Angel of Grozny: Chechnya and His Children ISBN 978-3100725240 (Eng. Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War. ) By Åsne Seierstad.
Web links
- Grozny's war-hardened orphans trying to be kids again ( Memento of February 17, 2006 in the Internet Archive ), Globe and Mail , 1996
- Grozny's Children of War Hope for Better Days , Reuters , December 26, 1997
- Orphans of One War Now Face Another , The Washington Post , October 6, 1999
- Chechen was orphans made whole with a gift , Toronto Star , May 5, 2002
- Author Asne Seierstad enters hell with the angel of Grozny , The Sunday Times , March 2, 2008
- Grozny's lost boys , The Sydney Morning Herald , March 22, 2008
- Shelter for the orphans of Russia's Chechen storm , The Independent , Mar 28, 2008
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gatajewa, Hadidschat |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gatajew, Hadijat; Gatayeva, Hadizhat; Gataeva, Khadijad |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Chechen activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 20th century |