EUMM Welcomes Release of 21 Georgians
EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM) called on law enforcement agencies on the both sides of the South Ossetian administrative border “to exercising flexibility” in dealing with cases of accidental trespassing of the administrative border.
21 Georgian citizens were arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service’s border guards, stationed in breakaway South Ossetia, earlier this week in two separate incidents. Five of them were released on October 29 and 16 others on October 30.
“The nature of the administrative divide and the traditionally tight network of contacts between local residents are likely to keep resulting in accidental straying, especially during the harvesting season,” EUMM said on October 30.
“Within the framework of the Incident Prevention and Reaction Mechanism, participants have repeatedly supported a gentlemen’s agreement according to which accidental trespassers should be sent back without being arrested or detained. A coherent implementation of this agreement would help prevent similar incidents and would positively impact on the living conditions of the local population.”
Welcoming the release of 21 Georgians, head of EUMM, Hansjörg Haber, said that cooperation between Georgian, South Ossetian, Russia and EUMM representatives “proved crucial” in bringing this case of detention of the Georgian citizens “to a prompt resolution.”
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