The mountains of southern Chechnya provide refuge to Islamic separatists. They have been fighting for almost 15 years - first the Russian authorities and now their representative, Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov.

Shamil Musayev is the administrative head of the Vedeno region and knows the local separatists and their leaders personally. They grew up together and he keeps a list of rebels who refuse to lay down their arms.

"You have to bury them three metres below ground and be done with it. That's the only thing to do with them," he says.

To put pressure on the rebels, Musayev brings together their parents regularly. Today they are meeting in a local school

"The Russians have a saying: 'The father does not answer for the actions of his son.' But in Chechnya they do,” say Musayev.

Usman Yakubov's two eldest sons are separatist fighters. He lives in a village with his younger children and their families - and says he receives threatening visits several times a week. Representatives of President Kadyrov come to see him, says Yakubov, and promise that he will pay personally for the war his sons are waging.

"They come and tell me they'll shoot me," he tells FRANCE 24. "What have I got to do with it? Do they my sons will come back if they shoot me?”

The Chechen authorities say that from now on there will be collective responsibility - the families of Islamist fighters will be punished because of their rebel children. Human rights advocates accuse the authorities of burning down the houses of separatists' families.

"In general it is masked and armed men who come," says Petr Orlov, president of the human rights centre Memorial. "They evacuate the people from their homes and then set fire to the building. They wait until the whole house has gone up in flames before leaving quietly and without any threats.”

In Chechnya there is no longer talk of an amnesty or trial for the rebels. Since this spring's suicide bombing outside police headquarters, the Chechen president has called for all-out war.

"I promise before Allah that I wanted to convince them to return to civilian life," Kadyrov recently told a rally. "I lived with the hope that they would think things over and leave the forests. They all have parents. If they cannot convince them to return home, we will kill them all.”

Chechen special forces have been ordered to attack the rebel bases and to take no prisoners.

Each week images of bodies, supposedly the remains of rebel fighters, are shown on television .

This is a war without an end. For each new death, a parent cries vengeance.