by Alan Quartly in Ingushetia

Families have been torn apart by the Chechen conflict

In the dim light of a damp cowshed, two little boys strain to look at a photograph of a young man.

An elderly Chechen woman standing nearby says the two brothers Artur, 5, and Timur, 3, haven't seen their father, Dzhabrail Tashukhadjiev in nine months.

Dzhabrail, is another victim of the fourth year of conflict in Chechnya.

And his two sons, now forced to live in a cattle shed in neighbouring Ingushetia, are just one family of over 80,000 refugees unable to return home.

The family comes from the Kurchaloi district of Chechnya, as did Zulikhan Elikhadzhieva, a 20-year-old woman Russian police say blew herself up in a suicide attack in Moscow last week leaving 14 dead.

That attack served as a reminder to ordinary Russians and the world that the conflict in Chechnya is far from over.

Russian security officials even warn of a brigade of 36 "black widows" - Chechen women whose families have been killed in the war - prepared to sacrifice themselves in fresh terrorist attacks.

Russian authorities say the thousands of refugees in Ingushetia will all be home in Chechnya before presidential elections in the republic - scheduled for 5 October.

But the mood among the refugees is pessimistic.

In another stall of the cowshed, Ibragim, 29, has breakfast with his two children, eight-year-old Aisha, and Dzhokar, 6, under a cardboard roof.

He says he can't return to Chechnya because he fears arrest and unlawful detention from Russian police.

A short drive away, thousands more refugees take shelter from a summer rain storm in tents erected four years ago in the muddy fields.

Like other Chechens, Ibragim fears arrest by Russian police

Abdul Khamid, returning to his tent after evening prayers in the camp mosque, scoffs at any idea of the war in Chechnya being over.

"If you spent the night here, you'd hear the explosions in the distance at night. They say there's no war, but how many people die every night?" he asks.

People in the camps at first express outrage at the suicide bombs, but then some Chechens try to put things in context.

"We Muslims say that if you take your own life, you'll never see paradise. I don't think any woman could do this, especially a 20-year-old girl," says camp shopkeeper Yesita Yusupova.

"But maybe if they've got nothing to lose?"

Hardening opinion

Makka Khanchukayeva from Grozny says her brother was arrested by Russian forces and her elderly father, unable to deal with the shock, died from a heart attack.

For her, it's possible to imagine why some women might resort to the worst.

"When young women in the prime of life blow themselves up, it's terrible. But they've been driven to desperation.

"I don't understand them, but on the other hand, I do understand. Their psyche's been disturbed because their husbands, sons, brothers, sisters have been rounded up," she says.

So far there's no evidence of a severe crackdown in the refugee camps.

But human rights organisations fear outrage at the terrorist acts could lead to more and more arbitrary arrests of young Chechen men.

Surkho, a young man who didn't want to be photographed, has experienced the anger of Russian security officials at first hand.

Smoking a cigarette in his family's tent, he admits to having been part of the rebel band of warlord Ruslan Gelayev and has only recently been released after a month's detention in Chechnya.

He's seen the reality of the Chechen conflict and warns that some may indeed be ready to sacrifice themselves and kill more innocent people.

The camp was erected four years ago

"Nobody will go and blow themselves up for no reason, but nearly 50 per cent of the people here are orphans. What can a young girl do if they killed everyone in her family?

"She's left on her own. So of course there'll be a lot more of them."

With opinion in the refugee camps of Ingushetia hardening, aid agencies warn as well of another winter of hardship approaching.

"The situation is probably worse in Ingushetia than a few years ago," explains Jonathan Campbell of the World Food Programme.

"We'd like to see people going home, but obviously the conditions have to be right.