South Ossetians describe fleeing from the fighting

[DogPoundPup]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

South Ossetian refugees on Sunday described being shelled and shot at and forced to run for their lives — leaving homes, family members and most of what they had behind. They talked of hiding in the woods, being mocked by Georgian soldiers and passing the dead on the roadside.

The hundreds of refugees from the fighting in the Georgian breakaway region sought shelter in Russia on Sunday. They were among thousands who fled the region, and in particular the capital city of Tskhinvali, in recent days as Georgian forces battled for control.

Marina Dudayeva, a woman in her early 20s, fled from Tskhinvali wearing only her bed clothes and a pair of plastic slippers. On Sunday she found herself at a leafy, run-down summer camp near Alagir in the Russian region of North Ossetia, just across the border from South Ossetia.

The residents of both regions are ethnic Ossetians, and have close family and cultural ties.

Dudayeva said she doesn't know what happened to relatives she left behind, including her 19-year-old brother.

"We can't contact them," she said, standing with her arms folded across her chest.

Many who fled still appeared to be in shock.

"The Georgians burned all of our homes," said one elderly woman, as she sat on a bench under a tree with three other white-haired survivors

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/08/10/international/i104800D51.DTL&type=politics

[Raven]

1. Well, we lowered the bar when it comes to brutality, are we surprised

that our allies would follow suite?

[snappyturtle]

2. K&R I'm depressed....when will all this killing stop, not just in Georgia

but everywhere?

[frankieT]

3. oh don't worry you won't read a lot of stories

about the mayhem and destruction caused by the brutal georgian operation to gain military control over its "territory" nor the terrific consequences on the people inside this territory.

[SpikeTss]

4. Each and every war ruins the lives of countless civilians

That's the only thing any war ever achieves. And that is exactly the reason, why every war in itself is a crime and has to be avoided. People who start wars of aggression belong to The Hague and in prison.

[Strelnikov_]

5. The stories in this article, if true, could be the reasons the Russians

are in no mood to parlay, and now appear to be moving on Gori to split Georgia in half.

Just like they gave back to the Nazi's what the Nazi's did to them, I'm afraid that Georgia is about to reap what they have sown.

[Igel]

6. Ethnic hatred runs deep there.

So does ethnic loyalty, and loyalty to one's patrons.

It pays to keep that in mind when evaluating emotionally charged rhetoric. Or rhetoric that's not so emotionally charged, for that matter.

Tskhinvali had two kinds of bombardment: The first, by Georgia, to occupy it. From villages maybe a kilometer outside Tskhinvali. Shots fired from the outposts at the city limits could hit the villages, and those fired from the villages at the outpots could hit the city.

The second was by Russia to oust the Georgia forces. They hit apt. buildings in Gori and elsewhere. They leveled Groznyi to defend the civilians and the Russians there.

But no Russian bombs, so errant outside of Tskhinvali, could possibly have hit civilians in Tskhinvali. Why?

Because that would mean your patron was responsible for killing yours, and that would mean you had to hate them. Meanwhile, there's a big bad bogeyman there that you just want to blame.

At that point the truth doesn't matter. Honor, loyalty, and hatred are the trinity that you worship, not truth, honesty, and respect. In the early '90s, there was no ethnic cleansing of Georgians; there was only the intentional killing of Ossetian children; or there was widespread repetition of the kinds of victimization inflicted on Georgians by Ossetians before, with accidental and completely lamented civilian casualties on the Ossetian side. It rather depends upon whose truth you accept, who's suffering you deem to be true suffering, and what you think the desired outcome is (not some fluffy "peace on earth", but "unification of Ossetia in the Russian Federation", "reinstitution of Georgian territorial integrity"--that kind of outcome).

[maddezmom]

7. kick

[AlphaCentauri]

8. Refugees 'escape horror' of South Ossetia battle

Source: ABC

A 40-year-old woman stands in the middle of a footpath and bursts into tears after arriving with a convoy of refugees in the embattled Georgian enclave of South Ossetia.

"When the Russians arrived, we were so happy, and after they bombed them ," said the woman called Meri, referring to the Russian assault and air raids on Georgia that forced Tbilisi to pull back its troops from South Ossetia.

She arrived at Java, about 20 kilometres from the main city of Tskhinvali, with a group of refugees, mostly women, escorted by Russian soldiers.

They escaped from the "horror", the one word they all used to describe the scenes of attacks by Georgian troops, battling against Russian and Ossetian rebel forces over the past three days.



Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/11/2331118.htm

[AlphaCentauri]

9. Dumbstruck and downtrodden, refugees relieved to be in Russian hands

ALAGIR, RUSSIA — They're still in bathrobes and sweatpants, the clothes they were wearing when they fled the Georgian rockets and bombs that rained on their villages in a predawn attack no one saw coming.

Some cowered in their basements, others scattered to the forest. By morning, they began their journey northward to Russia, and safety. The adults carried children and old men and women on their shoulders. Most young men stayed behind to fight.

Hundreds of refugees from South Ossetia now are packed into camps in southern Russia, along the northern border of the breakaway Georgian region. Many were dumbstruck at the terror unleashed during Friday's surprise, predawn attack by Georgian forces on their tiny mountainous republic, which won de facto independence during a bloody civil war in Georgia 16 years ago.

Gogi Loloev, 77, hid in his basement with his 90-year-old mother all night. "When I first heard the bombs, I thought: 'This is the end of our life here.' We said goodbye to it."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080811.wossetia11e/BNStory/International