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To: MarMema; All
Have we yet seen the aftermath of this bitter fruit?

Georgian refugees' plight is grim

The Georgia-Russia conflict is estimated to have displaced as many as 100,000 people, many of whom are yet to receive any aid.

TBILISI, GEORGIA — They squat in abandoned buildings, crash in rickety schoolhouses or sleep under bushes and trees. They stumble into the city wooden-faced and traumatized, children in tow, with little or nothing but the clothes they were wearing when they fled their houses. Tens of thousands of Georgians have been forced from their homes by days of fighting and Russian occupation, leaving this small country suddenly swamped in a major humanitarian crisis. Georgia is now packed with homeless and panicked families in desperate need of shelter, clothes, food and medicine. This week's cease-fire has not ended the suffering. The crush of displaced people has proved more than the government or aid organizations can handle...

LINK to story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-humanitarian16-2008aug16,0,6825143.story


202 posted on 08/16/2008 9:41:21 AM PDT by XR7
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Printed from
Georgian captives marched through rebel capital

GEORGIA : Dozens of haggard Georgian captives were marched through the South Ossetian capital on Saturday, as officials appealed for Georgia to recover the rotting corpses of its soldiers. The mostly elderly men -- apparently all civilians -- walked with their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs, escorted by armed guards. Locals stopped to take pictures on their mobile phones. Some pointed and laughed as the detainees marched through Tskhinvali. One woman said: "Those are the prisoners? But they're just old men!" Seventeen of the men were brought to the courtyard of the separatist territory's defence ministry to sweep up shards of glass and rubble from the fierce fighting between Georgian forces against Russian troops and separatist rebels last week. Thirty others were brought to a base on the northern edge of the city, walking through clouds of dust as Mi-8 Russian military helicopters flew low overhead. They were taken to a warehouse to unload food aid for South Ossetians. As the men were brought out of the cellars of the interior ministry building where they are being held, a soldier whacked one of them on the back of the head. Many of the men had black eyes and bruises on their faces...

LINK: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Georgian_captives_marched_through_rebel_capital/articleshow/3371170.cms


204 posted on 08/16/2008 10:01:10 AM PDT by XR7
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