YERAK-KIZMALYAR, Russia, Nov 29 (Reuters) - About 90 refugees from Chechnya arrived in Russia on Wednesday on their way home, an event presented by the pro-Moscow Chechen government as proof that normality was returning to the region. The refugees, most of them women and children, had been living in Georgia since the 1990s. They were among hundreds of thousands who fled fighting in their homeland and are now being encouraged to go back. The returnees were in the Russian region of Dagestan after crossing the border into Russia from Azerbaijan. Their destination was the Chechen capital Grozny, were they will be put up in temporary accommodation for a month. Russia has fought two wars against separatists in Chechnya since 1994. The insurgency has been pushed back into mountain hideouts and Moscow is pouring millions of dollars into reconstruction. Eteri Mochalikashvili and four family members were part of the refugee convoy. She said she was fed up with living as a refugee in Georgia. "We lived in other peoples' homes. Life was very hard and sometimes we went hungry. We survived on handouts. We are very pleased that we are coming home," she said. Chechnya's Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov organised the repatriation and has promised to help the returnees settle and find work in Chechnya. "We should not stop at what we have achieved. Our direct duty as officials is to bring our citizens back to the republic and provide them with all the necessary living conditions," he said in a statement. The most direct route home for the refugees, across the Georgian-Russian border, could not be taken because Moscow had cut transport links with Tbilisi in a political dispute. Admirers of Kadyrov, a 30-year-old with an armed personal militia, credit him with restoring relative order to Chechnya and rebuilding streets and buildings wrecked by shell fire. However, critics say his fighters routinely harass and abduct innocent people. They also say returning refugees languish in dispersal camps and are unable to find work.
