Over 52 000 Georgian refugee families still don’t have homes of their own
Around 52 000 displaced families, 58 per cent of all registered refugees, are still awaiting homes. So far, 35 927 families have been furnished with homes. Of these, 6 714 lost their homes during the 2008 August war. The information has been released by the Georgian ombudsman’s office.
“The homes they left behind in the occupied Tskhinvali region have been razed to the ground,” the ombudsman’s statement reads. “In Abkhazia, this property is regarded as ‘ownerless’ and is controlled by the de facto state, which violates the property rights of forcibly displaced citizens.”
• Beginning 1990 through to the end of 2008, 278 103 people became refugees.
Of these, 200 000 are refugees from Abkhazia (including 40 000 ethnic Georgians from the Gali District). Between 20 000 and 30 000 are residents of South Ossetia (including up to a thousand ethnic Georgians from the Akhalgori municipality). To date, several thousand refugees from the two regions have left Georgia and are living elsewhere.
• This year will be the tenth since the 2008 August war took place. During the active phase of the war, 163 000 people fled from South Ossetia, of which 36 000 left for North Ossetia. Then, by 3 September 2008 when the hostilities had ended, most of them had returned home.
During the conflict, 127 000 people moved from South Ossetia to Tbilisi-controlled territory. The majority of them were ethnic Georgians. Around 100 000 of them went back to their homes after the end of the active phase of the conflict, while the remaining 27 000 are still refugees.
