"If there are no more tents, rights groups and journalists will lose interest," said Ruslan Badalev, head of the Chechen Committee of National Salvation, a refugee support group.
"And then there isn't a Chechen problem any more -- the government can say whatever it likes."
Returning refugees receive 350,000 roubles (US$12,250) in compensation for lost property, said Malika Umayeva, deputy administrator of Bart camp, who fled Chechnya shortly after the army poured back into the region in 1999.
The sum is huge for people who have relied on aid from the UN and other humanitarian organizations for four years. But even for officials like her, it is not enough.
"I myself would be too scared to go home. I stayed in Chechnya during the first war between 1994 and 1996, I have already seen too much death," she said.
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