By Amina Umarova

Lyuba Dubas and her husband Beslan Magomadov have long awaited news of their daughter.

It was nearly four years ago, around midnight on January 19, 2004, that Milana Ozdoyeva was taken from their humble home in the village of Kotar-Yurt in Chechnya's Achkhoi-Martan Raion.

Lyuba vividly remembers the night heavily armed men wearing masks and military uniforms forced their way into the family home, ordered sleepy Milana to get dressed, and changed their lives forever.

"They knew perfectly well which room was where," Lyuba says. "They dispersed in the house and courtyard. They hit my husband with a rifle butt and knocked him down. They forced my son and husband to the ground and took aim at them. Then they commanded Milana to get dressed. She started to cry. She was expecting my help. I still remember her eyes, what could I do? I was powerless. They told me that if I took even one step they would kill me."

Milana was ordered to leave her 9-month-old son, still breast-feeding, and her 2-year-old daughter behind. The family was told that Milana would be released at 11 a.m. the following morning. Today, the whole family is helping to raise Amina, now 6, and Mogomed, now 4, as they wait for news about their mother.

"I've kept the doors open every night waiting for her. I'm afraid that I won't hear when she comes back," Lyuba says. "My heart has been aching since that night. I've written a lot of letters hoping to find her, for the sake of these kids. She had no time to do anything in life, she just gave birth to these two children. She was only 21 when they took her away. What could she have done at such an age?"

Falling Victims To The Violence

Like many young Chechens, Milana never finished school. She dropped out when she was in 11th grade, and soon afterward married Batyr Ozdoyev, a young man from a nearby village in Ingushetia.

At the time, the situation in Chechnya was critical. In cities and towns, Russian forces regularly carried out special sweep operations known as "zachistkas," or purges.

Young men in the republic were arrested in their homes and taken away without explanation. Sometimes, their mutilated or blown-up bodies were later discovered on the outskirts of Chechen towns. Others' names were added to the long list of the "disappeared."

Soon after their marriage, Milana's husband joined a Chechen rebel group. He was killed in November 2003. After the funeral, Milana returned to live in her parents' home with her two young children. The home soon received a visit by security personnel for the first time, Lyuba recalls.

"About a week after she came back they [security forces] came to check our passports. It was in December 2003. The group was led by Mikhail Yevseyev," she says. "They walked through the courtyard and took a careful look at everything. I saw them when I was returning from work. I asked them, 'What are you doing here?' They answered that they were checking passports. Then I asked again, 'Well, why don't you check mine?' But they said nothing to that," Lyuba says. "If only I had known that they were scrutinizing the layout of the house and courtyard."

After that the home was frequently visited by Yevseyev, an officer from the Federal Security Service (FSB) Directorate in Achkhoi-Martan Raion. Lyuba says the officer grilled Milana, claiming the FSB knew of Milana's plans to revenge her husband's death and to become a martyr.

Today Lyuba struggles to understand why such accusations were leveled against her daughter. "She had nothing of that on her mind. She used to say to him [Yevseyev]: 'I'm too young, I want to get married again.' I heard my daughter telling him this," she says.

"But he insisted that she wanted to do that [avenge her husband's death]. 'You are trying do it,' he would say. My daughter, of course, denied this. 'I'm an only daughter in the family, and my mother's in poor health,' she told him. I don't have such plans. I have two children, I'm a young mother, and I have to live for them. But this man Mikhail Yevseyev kept stalking her," Lyuba recalls.

Suspected 'Black Widow'

After the deadly Nord-Ost hostage crisis at Moscow's Dubrovka theater in October 2002, which was carried out with the help of women known as "Black Widows," women and girls increasingly were targeted by security forces in the Chechnya.

More than a year after the Moscow tragedy, Milana's newfound status as a widow brought her under suspicion by the FSB.

According to sources requesting anonymity, the security service may have determined that Milana served the separatist movement in Chechnya by couriering video and audio statements made by the republic's president, Aslan Maskhadov. Maskhadov's links to the outside world during the second Chechen war were largely dependent on such messages.

Even in the event her daughter did carry such messages, Lyuba says, it does not mean she should be deprived of her lawful rights. "If carrying cassettes is against the law, take my daughter to the court and sentence her. I would go and visit her. At least I would know where she is," she argues.

Keeping Milana's Memory Alive

The household in which Milana's children are being raised now numbers eight -- all living on 4,000 rubles ($160) a month. Lyuba says the family is grateful for what it has, considering the lack of work for men in the region.

"So, we're living like that. If we have food for today, we are happy. Children have at least some clothes," she says. "Amina finished first grade, now she is in second grade. She is a good student, gets only '5s' ["A" grades]. The boy is 4 years old. Because Milana has been away for three years and 10 months, he doesn't remember his mother. He calls me mom. I'm trying to let him know that he has his own young mother. I show him Milana's photos."

Lyuba has gone to great lengths to see Milana returned to her children. She has appealed to the Russian president, prosecutor-general, military prosecutors, and to the Interior Ministries and parliaments of both Chechnya and Russia.

But despite her efforts, Lyuba has come away empty-handed. "There's no one in a high position in the Russian government to whom I didn't appeal," she says. "I wrote letters to each of them. I ask them to help me find her. In their replies they usually say that they are working on her case, that they are looking for her and that I should wait more. They also advise that I go with all my questions to the Achkhoi-Martan prosecutor's office."

Wall Of Official Disinterest

But Lyuba says that when she takes the advice and meets with local officials, she receives little sympathy. She believes the FSB knows what happened to Milana, noting that officer Yevseyev worked in Achkhoi-Martan for two years.

She says that "unidentified people in masks" abducted residents of Kotar-Yurt throughout that time, claiming that 21 people from the small village located southwest of Grozny disappeared without a trace.

After Yevseyev left, Lyuba says, only one village resident has been taken away. She says it is beyond her strength to track down the mysterious officer herself, and that the authorities have the power but choose to do nothing.

"This man was dispatched to work here. When his time was up, he left," she says. "In my letters I inquired about him and the former head of the Achkhoi-Martan Raion FSB. The FSB answered that they never had an officer by that name. At the same time, no one denied that Mikhail Yevseyev exists. His name is still on the plaque in honor of the best performing officers of our district. So he does exist."

Lyuba says that after Anna Politkovskaya wrote an article about Milana, activists from a number of human-rights organizations visited the family, and some promised to help find her.

With Politkovskaya death went one of Milana's greatest champions. Now, Lyuba says she plans to turn to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.