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A new war in Chechnya sees the New Zealander Rendt Gorter abandoning a promising SCUBA diving school, and returning once again to the North Caucasus. Heading a large relief operation of a major relief organisation on the ground in Chechnya and Ingushetia, he finds the needed professional distance distracted by having know this haunted land too well when he worked there from 1995 to 1997 during the previous conflict. In this series he reflects on his personal experience in a war that has been largely ignored by the world.
Close-up the devastation in the city is stunning. No home seems to have been left unscathed. And the violence which took place is evident in the endless piles of rubble which mark the cityscape. After arriving for the first time in summer 1995, I had then described the city as 'completely devastated'. What is the superlative up from that by an order or two?
There is life - best estimates place the number of residents at around 50,000 and growing steadily. Many represent temporary visitors checking on home and contents, although it is not clear how large this portion is. What they find is barely a home left untouched.
Bisultan, our Ingush programme manager, for whom since the siege it was the first trip into the city where he was born and raised, points to a hole the size of two garage doors in the side of an appartment block."That's where my sister lived. They fled from their home only five minutes before the rocket hit."
When we pass the house of our driver, of course we stop to let him take a look. Moments later he appears again with a broad smile on his face. Save for a few bullet marks it is intact, he tells us. Oh, the fridge and cooker as well as some other moveable furnishings were taken. "People get killed for less, here." he shrugs. Tonight he'll be able to talk of his home which is still standing.
I remember finding Lecha not far from here just as the fighting was ending back in August 1996. We were relieved to see him alive and well, unlike some others whose corpses were lying not far away. His home had suffered then too, but with some work he had made it liveable again. Only to be driven from it again a few years later. And when will be the next time?
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And that does not mention the lack of gas, water and electricity. We see numerous people dragging and carting cannisters of water which is collected where it can be found. Just like in nearby Lermontova where over 60 people now have come down with Typhoid, which has infected the water source for the village.
But repairs are beginning. By a pile of concrete rubble, we see a man energetically shovelling dirt. We come to the polyclinic with another garage-door sized hole. Two women, in normal times nurses at this clinic we discover, are busy dragging twisted metal sheeting and debris to the side. The head doctor is there to meet us. She is setting out to turn this window-less shell without instruments and drugs back into a clinic. And, yes, the help is needed.
Also at another city hospital the medical staff are busy cleaning and repairing. Here too all the windows are missing, but gracious Fatima, a midwife by training, is busy sweeping the floor of the little office, oblivious of the line of bullet holes along one wall. Outside a trailer mounted stove is preparing food for the nearby inhabitants. There would be water, too, except that the water tank installed by an English organisation when I was here after the previous war - or was it the war before that? - has numerous bullet holes in it. Don't worry we are told, tyre patches will fix the rubber lining.
At the national Children's Hospital - the four storey building is still standing and only missing one corner - there is work going on too. Sultan the head doctor - he was deputy minister of health when I first met him in 1997 - is busy with a welding team he managed to beg of the Russian Emergencies ministry. He clambers off the balcony, wipes his hands on his waistcoat and welcomes us.
Inside we find piles of rubble, broken doors and windows, but a busy crowd of women. Amina, paintbrush in hand, smiles and waves at the ceiling - "Easy" she says.
Khadija is busy applying mortar where bullets have left ugly holes. She tells me of how Sultan brought them together and how he has been energetically trying to revive this hospital - 'With his own hands' she laughs.
The medical supplies we bring are eagerly unpacked. They are keen to receive patients again as soon as possible." 8,000 children are in the city," Sultan asserts confidently. "And they need looking after," he insists.
We ask about water. "We bring in jerrycans, from down by the lake." And ..? "We disinfect it of course," he assures us. Sure enough, they still have the remnants of sterilising tablets judiciously cached when last donated by that English aid organisation a few years ago.
And is it safe? "Of course, there is a Russian military post only a hundred meters away. They provide security, we can hear them shooting every night," he laughs.
But when we ask him about what the future holds in store, his smile dies. "People are coming back, he confirms, maybe 5-10,000 a week. But the war is far from over yet. Still, there are people, and they need help," he says, if somewhat subdued.
This is the second in a series of reports from Rendt Gorter, in Chechnya, to the G21.