In February, correspondent Anna Badkhen traveled from Moscow to Grozny to report on the simmering insurgency and human rights violations that continue to haunt Chechnya. Badkhen journeyed to Grozny via a 43 hour train ride, hiding her identity as a journalist so she could report on the human rights landscape deep inside Chechnya for FRONTLINE/World and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Badkhen is a veteran correspondent in the Russian republic. She covered the war there beginning in 2001, and has interviewed Chechnya’s controversial pro-Kremlin President Ramzan Kadyrov. Still, on this visit she was struck by how much the Chechen capital, which had been bombed to resemble Dresden after World War II, has been rebuilt.

But Badkhen suggests that progress has come at a terrible price.  In this iWitness interview she shares exclusive footage and recounts heartbreaking accounts gathered from Chechens who say their loved ones have been dissapeared and in some cases killed by Kadyrov’s feared miitia.

+ Read Anna Badkhen’s reporting journal from the 43-hour train ride to Grozny.
+ Read Anna Badkhen’s reporting in The Boston Globe and The National.

Anna Badkhen has covered the conflict in Chechnya since 2001. Her book about war and food will be published in October 2010. Anna’s trip to Chechnya this year was made possible by a joint grant from the Center for Investigative Reporting and FRONTLINE/World.

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