It’s been one year since fighting between Russia and Georgia forced around 130,000 people to flee their homes. But internally displaced Georgians are still stuck in a state of limbo, reports Jennifer Abrahamson.
Today, Kokoity is the self-declared President of South Ossetia, the tiny piece of territory which last August broke away from Georgia after a short yet fierce conflict waged with Russia. Spiridon, on the other hand, will likely never set foot in South Ossetia’s pastoral villages ever again.
“I lost everything in Qsuisi. My village. My house. My cattle. We had lots of fruit trees, apple and cherry. We grew strawberries. We were all born in those villages, our grandfathers were born there too. Now nothing is left,” Spiridon said.
A year ago - 14 August to be exact - Spiridon fled his village in South Ossetia as a hodgepodge of militia, and, he says, Russian troops, burned it to the ground. He and his family took shelter in a state school in Tbilisi until he was moved to Khurvaleti Settlement in late November, now home to some 450 internally displaced Georgians from South Ossetia.
Most of the 130,000 Georgians who fled their towns and villages last summer as Russian troops and firepower moved deeper into Georgian territory, have gone home and resumed normal lives.
However, 22,000 ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia like Spiridon are living in a state of limbo. They are unable to return to their villages in independent South Ossetia, which is recognized only by Russia and Nicaragua. They are equally unable to foresee a future for themselves in these government-built settlements where most ethnically Georgian South Ossestians are now living.
Most settlement residents have received small plots of land on which to farm. Spiridon has planted potatoes on a thin strip of land next to his concrete block. The government has given him corn seeds, but he says the land is not amenable to growing corn and that he would need a tractor to coax a decent crop from the soil. Thousands more re-settled internally displaced people (IDPs) living in other new communities have been allotted plots of land located several kilometres away and difficult to reach.
The government also gives settlement residents 25 Laris (£9), cooking oil, pasta and wheat for baking bread every month, but most say this is not a long term solution to their predicament. Finding jobs, receiving government benefits and being able to reach good, arable land is. Food rations and pocket money are no longer enough.
This week (1 August), Oxfam has launched a new programme that will help thousands of IDPs lobby the Georgian government to provide them with social benefits and a chance to become economically self-sufficient once again.
Only time will tell if Spiridon will ever return home. In the meantime, what he needs most is a job, government benefits and a good piece of accessible land so he can get on with his life.
“Hope dies last. We hope that we might have the chance to go back,” he said. “It’s very difficult for us to stay here. If you could only see what are villages were like. This is all just like a bad dream.”
Oxfam in action: Georgia Crisis
Tags: georgia
