Postimees, a newspaper, reported Tuesday that the Chechens should have arrived at the Turicalu camp near Tallin in the beginning of July. The Estonian embassy in Moscow said several times that the visas were ready and then said that they refused to issue the visas.
The Estonian Foreign Ministry press service did not comment on the decision and said, "the refusal to issue a visa is based on Estonia's law on foreigners."
Chechen school children have already attended similar camps in Romania, Poland and Hungary without any problems. Currently a group of Chechen children are studying at the BFE camp in Belarus.
Bridges for Education language camps have been operating since 1994 and have trained 10,000 school children from 35 European countries. George Soros, Unesco, and the education ministries of some European countries fund the project.
