Tbilisi Condemns Crime Rise in Gali
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said on January 9 that a series of violent attacks, burglary and kidnapping cases that took place in the Gali district of breakaway Abkhazia ?clearly indicate that the separatist government either cannot or does not control the situation in the Gali district.?
According to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, on January 6 six unknown armed men attacked and robbed buses in the villages of Tagiloni, Gudava and Lekukhone – in the predominately Georgian populated Gali district. The attackers kidnapped driver Malkhaz Okujava, a local resident of Tagiloni and demanded that his family pay a ransom of GEL 50,000.
Tbilisi insists that an OSCE/UN human rights office be opened in the Gali district. Although the Abkhaz side admits that the criminal situation in Gali is grave, Sokhumi refuses to give its consent to open a human rights office there, saying that crimes committed in Gali are not ethnically-motivated.
Tbilisi also insists on the deployment of a UN police force in Gali, which will consult local law enforcers. A similar unit already cooperates with the Georgian law enforcers in Zugdidi, a town at the administrative border with the breakaway region. But the Abkhaz side opposes the deployment of a UN force as well, citing that a similar unit in Zugdidi has not fostered an improved crime situation there.
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