30 July 2010, 21:00
Kakha Kukava: Abkhazian refugees live in ghetto, but evicted from there too
The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed by Kakha Kukava, Secretary General of the Conservative Party, that since the end of the Georgian-Abkhazian war 90,000 refugees from Abkhazia live in Tbilisi.
"These are only those who live in hotels, boarding houses and other block buildings. Actually, there are much more of them," he said.
According to his story, now the authorities are ousting refugees from the places of their compact residence, which have been privatized.
"They are now evicted either to Zugdidi or to the mountain area - to Tsalka, where they just won't survive because of severe climate. Today they live in inhuman conditions: five-seven persons live in the floor area of 15 square meters. They have no water and no normal heating; their residences are hard to reach. They live, actually, in a ghetto, but they are evicted even from there," said the politician.
Mr Kukava notes that resettlement of people from Tbilisi is complicated by the fact that many of them have found at least some work in Tbilisi.
In the opinion of Lasha Chkhartishvili, an activist of the Conservative Party, even if these people agree to resettle to villages of the Zugdidi District, it will mean that refugees will be doomed to starve for a year, as they will not manage to grow their crops. "They'll surely have no other incomes there," the "GHN" Agency quotes Mr Chkhartishvili as saying.
Natia Mosashvili, representing the Association of Young Lawyers of Georgia, told the "Echo of the Caucasus" Radio that only after this June the police have evicted refugees from five different places of their collective accommodation.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported earlier that today another protest action of Abkhazia refugees was held in Tbilisi. They gathered in front of the building of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia and again demanded to cancel their eviction from the places of mass residence.
Author: Beslan Kmuzov Source: CK correspondent