Chechen woman feared dead in honour killing declared missing nearly 2 years after disappearance

The Russian Interior Ministry has placed Seda Suleymanova, a Chechen woman who was abducted from her home in St. Petersburg and forcibly returned to her family in Chechnya in August 2023, on its list of missing persons nearly two years after her disappearance, independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Monday.

Suleymanova’s photo and passport information has been added to the Interior Ministry’s missing persons database, alongside a phone number of a police station in the Naursky district in Chechnya, Mediazona wrote.

Suleymanova fled Chechnya in 2022 to avoid an arranged marriage, and reportedly told both her friends and human rights activists in St. Petersburg that she could be killed if her relatives found her and forced her to return to Chechnya.

There has been no news of Suleymanova since 29 August 2023, when Chechnya’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Mansur Soltaev, posted a photo of himself with Suleymanova wearing a headscarf and looking visibly battered, claiming she was “feeling fine”, six days after her abduction.

In February 2024, two separate sources told human rights group North Caucasus SOS that Suleymanova may have been murdered by her relatives for her disobedience.

Since January 2024, Lena Patyaeva, a close friend of Suleymanova, has spearheaded a campaign demanding an investigation into her disappearance and possible death, mounting several solo pickets, including one in the Chechen capital Grozny.