Jubilee of end of Five-Day War recalls civilians' tragedy

The Five-Day War, which ended on August 12, 2008, brought untold sufferings to many residents of South Ossetia and Georgia, the journalists, who witnessed the events of ten years ago, have recollected.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that August 12 marked 10 years since the end of the armed conflict of Georgia and South Ossetia with the participation of Russia, which went down in history as the "Five-Day War".

Tatiana Lokshina, the programme director of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) for Russia, who arrived in South Ossetia as a journalist on August 10, 2008, shared her impressions of what she had seen.

Women and children "trembled in cellars for two days while Tskhinvali was attacked by artillery," Ms Lokshina said. "Someone tried to take out children in panic already after the outbreak of the warfare on August 8. Cars with refugees were shelled on the road; the children were crying and their mothers were hysterical. Volunteers with submachine guns rushed at Georgian tanks."

Ilya Barabanov, a correspondent of the "New Times", who was in a village in South Ossetia during the Five-Day War, told that on August 11, 2008, Russian military equipment was moving toward Tskhinvali "just in huge numbers."

According to his story, ambulances could not deliver those wounded from Tskhinvali to North Ossetia, "because driving was too difficult because of jams created by military equipment."

On December 19, 2008, the "Novaya Gazeta" published a special report by Arkady Babchenko about what he saw in South Ossetia during the Five-Day War.

"Destroyed military equipment ... Burnt down houses ... Hospital overcrowded with patients ... Burned down women in bags ... Russia is at war with Georgia. In what terrible dream could it ever have seen?" Arkady Babchenko wrote.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 13, 2018 at 05:05 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.