Unreported World

Unreported World uncovers the largely hidden but bloody conflict in the Russian Republic of Ingushetia. In a country to which few Western journalists have been able get access, Unreported World reveals allegations that hundreds of innocent civilians are disappearing and being tortured and murdered by the security forces in an increasingly violent campaign that threatens to turn into another Chechnya.

Shortly after reporter Evan Williams and director Clancy Chassay arrive in Nazran, the largest town in Ingushetia, they are taken to a house and met by a crowd of grieving women. One of them tells Williams that, just a few days earlier, 400 heavily-armed Russian soldiers had surrounded the house before dragging her outside. She claims the troops killed her son Musa and blew up his body with a grenade. In the cellar of the house, the team is shown blood and flesh on the bricks and signs of a blast. Musa's father tells Williams that his son, who was training to be an architect, had just got married and had a one-month-old baby.

The team travels to a graveyard just outside Nazran to meet Rashid, Musa's cousin. He tells Williams that the family has suffered other deaths. He claims his brother and three friends had been picked up and tortured by government security services because they had unintentionally witnessed a security operation, and to hide the signs of torture security services had blown their bodies up in a car. The security officials said they were rebels but Rashid denies this.

The following day, the team is stopped while passing through a checkpoint. They are taken in for questioning first by the local police, and then by immigration officials, and the FSB - the Russian secret service. After they are released, a contact says she has information that security officials had decided they should be considered 'enemies of the state' and, if caught, to be prevented from working and have their material confiscated.

Outside of Nazran, the family of another victim show Williams photographs of 24-year-old Batheer. His mother says a few weeks earlier the police took him to Nazran police headquarters. Ten days later she found out on the internet that a man with her son's name was killed in the forest. The authorities claimed he was a rebel who was carrying a weapon and who was killed in a clash with government forces. His mother says he was an aircraft engineer who'd been given security clearance. She claims that when she finally received Batheer's body it was covered with what appeared to be signs of torture.

The team meets the head of Ingushetia's main human rights group, who shows Williams pictures of hundreds of people he claims have been tortured and killed by security forces. He claims even his own deputy was kidnapped and tortured by state security. He says people can be arrested on suspicion of being a rebel, being related to a rebel or even just being seen with a suspected rebel.

It is estimated that the Ingush rebels have killed around 200 Russian and Ingush police and soldiers over the past seven years. Civilians have also been injured and killed in those attacks, which Moscow says are motivated by militant Islam. While the FSB didn't respond to specific allegations uncovered by Unreported World, Russia says strong military action is needed to maintain the integrity of its southern frontier. It says its actions support the war against Islamist terror and if it did not take these steps Ingushetia could become a new home for global jihad.

More people contact the team. One of them, a local journalist, tells Williams that a charity worker and close friend of hers has just been kidnapped by men in uniform in the nearby Chechen capital, Grozny, and that nobody knows where she is. Just as the team prepares to leave the country, they receive another call from her. She says the bodies of her friend and her husband have been found been dumped in a car boot on the outskirts of Grozny.

Clips from Episode 11

• Cellar Execution

• All Clips (1)