A Chechen woman who fled to Armenia to escape domestic violence has been found dead in the capital Yerevan, the local police announced on Monday.
Aishat Baymuradova, 23, was reported missing by friends on Friday when she failed to return home having gone to meet a friend she had made on Instagram on Wednesday. It has since emerged that the unnamed friend’s subscribers included people with close ties to the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov.
The Armenian police said her body was found on Sunday in a rented apartment in Yerevan, and has launched an investigation.
Human rights activist Lydia Mikhalchenko told independent outlet Agentstvo that Baymuradova had been strangled in the early hours of Thursday. Mikhalchenko added that two unidentified suspects in Baymuradova’s murder were captured on surveillance footage outside the building where her body was found, but that they are believed to have fled to Russia.
While it is unclear when Baymuradova fled her family and left Russia with the help of human rights activists that assist women in the North Caucasus, it is known that she shared a flat with friends in Yerevan. When she stopped answering calls and messages, friends initially worried that she may have been forcibly returned to Chechnya.
Cases of Chechen women who have fled domestic violence or arranged marriages being coerced or forcibly returned home are not uncommon. Seda Suleymanova, a Chechen woman who left her family and chose to live independently in St. Petersburg, was returned to Chechnya against her will in August 2023 with the help of the police after relatives tracked her down. She is now missing and presumed dead as the victim of a so-called honour killing.