Georgia/South Ossetia: Surviving the peace

Five years of aid

Restoring family links

Over the last five years, separated families have exchanged 9,841 Red Cross messages and the ICRC has organized 356 family reunifications.

Missing persons

The ICRC supports the families of people who went missing in 2008 or during the 1989-1992 conflict. Cooperation with the association of families of missing persons allows the ICRC to give families practical and psychological support.

We continue to urge all authorities to provide families with information on the whereabouts of people who went missing during the August 2008 conflict.

The ICRC helped set up a tripartite "Coordination Mechanism for the Clarification of the Fate of Persons Missing from the August 2008 Armed Conflict" and chaired seven meetings involving Georgian, South Ossetian and Russian participants. So far, the remains of ten people have been exhumed under the Mechanism. Six of these sets of remains could be identified and returned to their families for burial.

Detainee welfare

The ICRC visits detainees in South Ossetia and in Georgia, to assess their conditions of detention. ICRC support has enabled detainees in Tskhinval/Tskhinvali and Tbilisi prisons to receive parcels from their relatives, with 29 detainees able to see their relatives during 154 visits.

Health

The 2008 conflict left many people without medical care.

Mobile medical clinics operated from 27 August 2008 until the end of October that year, carrying out well over 6,000 consultations, mainly for elderly people with chronic diseases.

The ICRC:

ensures that the most vulnerable people in South Ossetia can obtain medical services;

renovated four clinics and one hospital in the former buffer zone during 2008;

has enabled 217 people living in and around Tskhinval/Tskhinvali to receive hospital treatment by supporting 239 medical evacuations;

has provided hospitals in Shida Kartli, western Georgia and Abkhazia with emergency supplies;

has provided hospitals in Shida Kartli with medical equipment, material, infusions and drugs;

has built or renovated 10 medical stations, making it easier for people in country areas to receive health care;

supports the work of the Georgian Foundation for Prosthetic and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation, enabling that organization to provide rehabilitation services to the victims of mines and explosive remnants of war;

ensures that people who need artificial limbs can use the Vladikavkaz physical rehabilitation centre.

Humanitarian aid and economic support

2008

The ICRC distributed food and essential household items to 14,000 people in 27 villages in Shida Kartli along the ABL as winter approached.

2009-2011

The ICRC supplied seed and fertilizer to 10,000 people in 158 villages.

2009-2013

A microeconomic initiative programme launched in 2009 is giving families a permanent source of income from their own small businesses. So far, around 2,200 people have taken part, some of them victims of mines and explosive remnants of war.

2009

Over 11,000 vulnerable people received food, clothing, footwear and firewood, helping them survive the winter.

The ICRC provided seed, fertilizer and chemicals to 7,600 people in the villages of Shida Kartli along the ABL.

2010

In January 2010, the ICRC started delivering flour to remote districts so that people could buy it at affordable prices. This had become impossible in many such districts, due to the poor condition of the roads and the lack of public transport. In close cooperation with local people, the ICRC trucked 401 sacks of flour to seven villages of the Tsinagarsky and Zakkorsky municipalities of Leninogorsk district, allowing people to buy flour at market prices established in Tskhinval/Tskhinvali.

The ICRC distributed firewood to 380 families in districts still contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance, so that they would not need to enter dangerous areas in search of firewood.

Since 2010, the ICRC has been able to move from providing relief in Shida Kartli to providing some of the supplies that people need in order to regain their self-sufficiency, such as seed and fertilizer.

2011

The ICRC enrolled more families of missing people and mine/ERW victims in the assistance programme.

2012

Assistance focused on the microeconomic initiative programme, with 856 people joining.

Renovating dwellings and ensuring access to safe water

2008

The ICRC:

renovated water and sanitation facilities in two collective centres in Shida Kartli, which were sheltering about 200 people;

provided tarpaulins, wooden battens and plastic sheeting for making temporary repairs to houses, benefiting over 8,300 people in the former buffer zone along the ABL.

2009

The ICRC:

installed 35 showers and toilets in the Metekhi IDP centre, improving the living conditions of over 140 IDPs;

repaired the water distribution systems in the villages of Shindisi, Pkhvenisi, Brotsleti, Ditsi, Mereti and Sakasheti, improving the water supply for almost 4,400 people.

2010

The ICRC built a water distribution system, providing clean drinking water for some 2,450 people in the village of Sakasheti (Shida Kartli) and 4,800 in the districts of Gori and Kareli.

2011

The ICRC drilled boreholes and repaired the water network in three villages along the ABL, bringing clean drinking water to over 1,300 people.

2012

The ICRC:

worked with the United Water Company of Georgia to provide an improved water supply for over 4,000 people in eight villages along the ABL;

improved the water system for some 2,400 people in two other villages, by drilling boreholes and installing pumps;

renovated two buildings of the former hall of residence of the agricultural school in Tskhinval/Tskhinvali, where eight displaced families were living.