03 April 2019, 08:25
Forced migrants threaten to go on hunger strike in Georgia
300 temporarily displaced persons from Abkhazia, who have occupied apartments in a residential complex in Tbilisi, have demanded to remove the police cordon and let an advocate and journalists visit them. The developer has blamed them for spoiling property in the building.
On March 29, forced migrants from Abkhazia gathered outside the Georgian parliament with a demand to provide them with housing. On April 1, they occupied apartments in the residential complex "Dirsi" and declared that they needed foodstuffs and medicines.
Georgia has registered over 267,000 force migrants from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, who left their homes after the 1992-1993 Georgian-Abkhaz War and the conflict with South Ossetia.
Beso Djikurauli, Director General of the "Dirsi", has urged refugees to leave the illegally occupied residential complex, as they are damaging the internal property thereof, the "Pirveli" TV Company reports.
Refugees have rejected this accusation, the "Rustavi-2" TV Channel reports. They assert that they had not damaged anything, and ask to let journalists to visit them to prove it.
Lasha Chkhartishvili, the head of the Human Rights Centre of the Labour Party, says that he supports the settlers and noted that they have no essentials there.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 2, 2019 at 11:37 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
