Friday, 15 August 2008
Tension had been rising in the area for days and Nona Bakarashvilli, 51, an ethnic Georgian with four children, was increasingly worried. She, along with her husband, Georgi, left their home in the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia to seek a place of safety.
Six hours after leaving their village, Mrs Bakarashvilli was shot at a checkpoint by a drunken militiaman. She died of her wounds – one of many civilian casualties in the atrocities which are now coming to light, say humanitarian groups, on both sides of this conflict. Mr Bakarashvilli, 58, and the couple's children managed to reach the home of a relative inside Georgia proper, but not before losing all their money and the few belongings they had brought with them to the gunman.
Now the village where they have ended up is also at the mercy of marauding Ossetian, Cossack and Chechen paramilitaries who have come into Georgia behind Russian troops. They know that they must move on again from the danger.
More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/kim-sengupta-villagers-caught-in-front-line-become-victims-of-atrocities-897559.html