Police in St. Petersburg are investigating the disappearance of a Chechen woman who was forcibly sent back to Chechnya last year as a possible murder, the SK SOS human rights group said on April 8.
The human rights group said earlier that police in Russia's second-largest city started an investigation into Seda Suleimanova's disappearance in late March, adding that the 26-year-old may have been the victim of a so-called "honor" killing in her native region.
SK SOS now says it discovered that Suleimanova's case is being investigated as murder but did not say how it found out or release details about the investigation.
Russian authorities had been reluctant to investigate Suleimanova's case and in recent months had briefly detained several of her supporters who tried to raise awareness about her disappearance.
Meanwhile, Suleimanova's relatives insisted that she left Chechnya on February 5. However, SK SOS said its activists called two of Suleimanova's relatives on February 6, and they assured them that she was there with them but refused to pass the telephone to her so that she could talk.
On February 7, SK SOS quoted two independent sources in Chechnya as saying that the woman may have been killed.
Suleimanova's story attracted the attention of international human rights organizations in August after police in St. Petersburg detained her along with her partner, Stanislav Kudryavtsev, at their apartment and took them to a police station. There she was informed that she was suspected of stealing jewelry in Chechnya, a charge she denied.
Suleimanova was then transferred to Chechnya, and attempts to locate her by Kudryavtsev, who converted to Islam to be able to visit Chechnya and marry Suleimanova, have failed.
In September, Chechen authorities issued a video showing Suleimanova in Chechnya. She did not speak in the video, and after it was released no information on her whereabouts was made public.
Suleimanova had turned to SK SOS in October 2022 for help leaving Chechnya, saying that her relatives might kill her for being "insufficiently religious."
Human right defenders say families in the North Caucasus often file complaints accusing fugitive women of crimes, usually theft, to legalize their detention and return them to their relatives. When they return, the women face violent abuse.
Domestic violence has been a problem in Russia's North Caucasus region for decades. Victims who manage to flee often say that they may face "punishment," including "honor killings," if they are forced to return.
To make matters worse for the victims, local authorities usually take the side of those accused of being the abusers.