GEORGIA: Georgian villages in South Ossetia remain almost deserted after August war

Record ID: 1519575

  • Title: GEORGIA: Georgian villages in South Ossetia remain almost deserted after August war
  • Date: 25th March 2009
  • Summary: AKHALGORI, SOUTH OSSETIA, GEORGIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) AKHALGORI CENTRAL SQUARE SOUTH OSSETIAN FLAG ON LOCAL ADMINISTRATION BUILDING VAN TO TBILISI DRIVING THROUGH STREET OLD MAN SITTING ON STREET OLD MEN SITTING ON BENCH ON STREET MASOBRUNI, SOUTH OSSETIA, GEORGIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) CHECKPOINT ON THE DE FACTO BORDER BETWEEN SOUTH OSSETIA AND GEORGIA AKHALGORI, SOUTH OSSETIA, GEORGIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF VOLODYA ODISHVILI, GEORGIAN NATIONAL, RESIDENT OF AKHALGORI, CUTTING WOOD IN HIS COURTYARD (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) VOLODYA ODISHVILI, GEORGIAN NATIONAL, RESIDENT OF AKHALGORI, SAYING: "I lost my job. Nothing works here, the plant doesn't work, everything is closed and destroyed, we all are jobless now." PEOPLE ON STREET (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) VOLODYA ODISHVILI, RESIDENT OF AKHALGORI, SAYING: "We are afraid day and night, nobody knows what's going to happen, there are troops and military vehicles all around here." POLICE CAR DRIVING TOWARDS AKHALGORI CENTRAL SQUARE
  • Embargoed: 10th April 2009 03:16
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Georgia
  • Country: Georgia
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8XSWX92N461ROWWE7W7B7VF0X
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: The few residents still remaining in the Georgian settlement of Akhalgori in South Ossetia say they live in fear and have no work.
    Once bustling with over 10,000 residents the South Ossetian town of Akhalgori, mostly populated by ethnic Georgians, now looks deserted. The buildings, including the local administrative headquarters bearing the South Ossetian flag, still carry signs of the war almost a year later.
    Akhalgori is located near the de facto border between South Ossetia and Georgia. Vans shuttle several times a day between Akhalgori and Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. A checkpoint manned by South Ossetian and Russian troops marks the entrance to the cluster of villages that come under Akhalgori's administration and residents are registered to show that they live in the border villages.
    A one-way trip to cover the 50 kilometres from Tbilisi to Akhalgori takes just under an hour. To get to Tskhinvali, the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, the journey can last up to eight hours as residents are forced to travel on mountain roads. The bus is only scheduled once a week.
    The region's August war has made life in Akhalgori and a cluster of villages around it more difficult. Before the war the whole region was under Georgia's administration.

    "I lost my job. Nothing works here, the plant doesn't work, everything is closed and destroyed, we all are jobless now," said ethnic Georgian, Volodya Odishvili, who used to work at the local brewery before the war. He is one of the few people who stayed in Akhalgori during and after the conflict.
    "We are afraid day and night, nobody knows what's going to happen, there are troops and military vehicles all around here," he said.
    Odishvili's children and grandchildren have now moved into Tbilisi controlled territory.
    Most Akhalgori residents escaped in the first days of fighting, others fled in the following months. The Georgian government has built several villages to settle refugees from South Ossetia, where houses have electricity, heating and running water. Akhalgori has not yet received any aid.
    The local orphanage, located in a rundown two-story building is still operating. But out of 70 children only 45 are still there. Others have been taken by relatives to Georgia.
    "Almost all the people have left the village, only the orphanage is still functioning, there are no children even at schools, very few children left here. There are almost no people left here, I would say about 10 percent from what it was," said Manana Makharashvili, the orphanage's deputy director.
    Makharashvili said that all the people still living in Akhalgori receive salaries and pensions every month from the Georgian government and very irregularly they get paid from the separatist Tskhinvali administration.
    In the last six months Makharashvili said she has only received a salary from Tskhinvali twice, though officially the region is under its control.
    According to information from the Georgian government more than 20,000 ethnic Georgians fled South Ossetia during and after the August war.
    There is no independent confirmation of how many ethnic Georgians returned to Akhalgori after the war. According to the South Ossetian administration it is around 5000 people, half of the pre-war population.
    Human rights groups say that during the war and the following months South Ossetian militias, with the complicity of Russian forces, systematically destroyed ethnic Georgian villages and harassed the few ethnic Georgians who remained. Moscow and the separatist authorities have denied the allegations.
    Russia invaded Georgia last August to thwart an attempt by Tbilisi to re-establish control over the pro-Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has since declared independence along with another breakaway enclave, Abkhazia.
    Since the five-day war, both regions have been recognised by Russia as independent states.
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