Russian Border Guards in S.Ossetia Detain 16 Georgians

Sixteen Georgian citizens were detained by the Russian Federal Security Service’s border guards, stationed in breakaway South Ossetia, on October 25, both the Georgian side and the authorities in breakaway region said on Monday.

According to the South Ossetian side sixteen men were detained close to the village of Salbieri, in the east from Akhalgori, for “violation of the South Ossetian border.” Sixteen men were in the forest to get firewood, according to both the reports from both the Georgian and South Ossetian sides.

Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Nalbandov said “active efforts” were underway to secure release of detained citizens.

There have been number of cases previously, when Georgians were detained for, what Tskhinvali and Moscow call, “violation of border”. The issue was discussed for several times at meetings in frames of incident prevention and response mechanisms.

According to EU Monitoring Mission, when the issue was discussed in August, there was “a common spirit” to treat these cases pragmatically and instead of detention, to turn back those people, who allegedly were crossing administrative boundary line.

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