Russian Troops Obstacle to IDP Return – UN Official

Russian military checkpoints north of Gori in Georgia proper are an obstacle to humanitarian relief efforts, a UN official told the Security Council on August 28.

Elizabeth Spehar, the director of the Americas and Europe division of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), said that Russian forces had set up 18 checkpoints between Gori and South Ossetia. They are not only an obstacle to the humanitarian relief effort, she said, but also to people trying to return to their homes.

“The UN High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR] has expressed concern over reports of new forcible displacement caused by marauding militia north of Gori near the boundary line with South Ossetia,” she said.

According to UNHCR, 1,200 people from villages devastated by the fighting in the 26-kilometre-wide buffer zone between Gori and South Ossetia have been registered as internally displaced persons (IDPs) with the local authorities in Gori. The IDPs include newly displaced people who have fled from villages in the buffer zone and also people who tried to return but were again forced to turn back.

Newly displaced persons have told stories of intimidation, beatings and looting by militia groups in the buffer zone villages.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a press release that villagers from north of Gori and from South Ossetia “can’t imagine returning any time soon, particularly where there are cluster munitions, unexploded ordinance, and landmines in their villages and homes.”
 
It was the Security Council’s sixth emergency session on the crisis in Georgia in recent weeks, and as expected, it again failed to produce a resolution or even a statement.

Reuters said the session was “characterized by Cold War-style exchanges of insults between the U.S. and Russian U.N. ambassadors.”

Russia proposed that Abkhaz and South Ossetian representatives be invited to address the Security Council.

But only South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo supported the Russia invitation. Reuters reported that the Chinese delegation – Russia’s traditional ally on the council – did not speak at all on the matter.

Meanwhile, in Abkhazia, UN Observer Mission monitors witnessed large-scale Russian troop and military hardware withdrawal from Georgia to the Abkhaz-controlled side of the ceasefire line, Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, the director of the Europe and Latin America Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), told the Security Council session.

He also said Abkhaz forces continued to maintain control over the villages of Ganmukhuri and Khurcha on the Georgian side of the ceasefire line. Both villages were under Georgian administration before the conflict erupted.