E-channel

Most of the 250 houses of the village have been ruined during the Russian-Georgian war. After the ceasefire, the residents of Ergneti have come back. However, there are no sufficient conditions here for living.

In near-the-border villages, you can regularly hear fire-shots. On the day prior to our visit to the South-Ossetian-Georgian border the ceasefire regime had been infringed.

Medea Turashvili, an expert of the international group on crisis, says that there is still tension at the South-Ossetian-Georgian border. Since August, 2008, 12 victims have been registered at the so-called buffer zones.

Also Turashvili notes that people that have returned to their villages after

the August war live in very bad conditions. Rural inhabitants have lost last year’s harvest because of the war, and it is not clear whether they will get harvest this year, or not.

Men gathered in Ergneti center tell there is no energy and water delivery in the sector near the village border. Also, there is no agriculture equipment for gathering the harvest in Ergneti. There are no jobs in the village. The state regularly provides the Ergneti residents with flour, salt, sugar and other products.

In August, 2008, the house of Nugzar, an inhabitant of Ergneti, was bombed. Only the blackened walls have been left. He demonstrates his ruined two-storey house where he has lived with his father, wife and two kids. Near the ruined house, here is a one-room cottage built by the Danish Council of Refugees.

“We have been given this cottage where there are beds, a wardrobe, a table and 4 chairs. We live in crowded conditions, and it is too humid here,” Nugzar states.

“We have promised to the population living in the zone of the last year’s war that we will eliminate the traces of war,” says Zurab Chinchilakashvili, the deputy governor of Shida Kartli. Ergneti, other near-the-border villages and Gori that was under the control of the Russian armed forces during the war in 2008 are in the province of Shida Kartli.

“When you meet the inhabitants of near-the-border zone, they will complain to you. That is normal. After all, people have suffered not only material but also psychological loss,” 31-years-old deputy governor Chinchilakashvili says.

Nugzar says he has received compensation. However, it will not be sufficient to restore his house. Everybody in Ergneti agrees with him.

The house of Lia Geralidze, 52, is on the edge of the village, very close to the border. Before the war, Lia was the head of Peaceful Initiatives Center NGO functioning in the village. However, peaceful activities have not protected her from the war. Lia’s house has been completely ruined. Only the oven house has survived.

Lia doesn’t live in the village but she comes here every day. “We can never afford recovering our big house with the allotted 15 thousand dollars. It is not clear yet whether we can put a roof over the burnt walls or we have to break the wall and dig the base of a new house,” Lia says. She hopes that the authorities will help to recover their village.

All of the destroyed houses of Ergneti are two-storey buildings with big rooms and gardens. You can see the traces of former well being here. The inhabitants used to earn well with the help of trade, agriculture and livestock breeding. The war has turned the successful life of Ergneti inhabitants into a memory.

The article was written by the support of Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR.)