Refugees from Tskhinvali: Georgia's foreign mercenaries shot at us

The refugees from South Ossetia, with whom the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent managed to talk today, assert that they were shelled by foreigners recruited by Georgia as mercenaries.

"Basically mercenaries are shooting there, they speak English. They shoot at everything that moves, be it humans or dogs. They were shooting people dead and laughing. Who behaves like that?! I saw them planting grenades into the cellars, where people were hiding," said Laura Gabaraeva, a resident of the city of Tskhinvali, whose house was blown up by Georgian militaries.

The woman has also narrated how Georgian servicemen had bombed down her cousin's house: "They dropped a bomb straight on the house, and now there is a crater only. My brother has left to war against Georgians together with his, and now we can't find them. People are buried right into kitchen gardens, because they cannot get to the cemetery," she continued.

Together with her uncle, who had also survived by miracle in the warfare in South Ossetia, Laura was making her way to the city of Alagir, where the largest camp for temporary accommodation of refugees was deployed. Now, the camp counts 530 persons, many women and children among them. Here is what they told:

"They killed old men and raped people. What else can we say? We've never seen this before. Some people ran to the woods, others - just away, without any direction. Plenty of children were assassinated, probably, in thousands," said Zaira Dzhanaeva. She managed to take all her family - husband and three children - out of Tskhinvali, and already gave evidences to inspectors.

"Nothing has left, even trees in the street. In Tskhinvali, everything was destroyed, whole families perished there. There's no place to bury the casualties. I'm still in shock and cannot speak more," said Rima Khubaeva.

Anna Bichenova arrived to refugees' camp on August 10 after she spent several days in a cellar in Tskhinvali with her two-year-old son. "We were in a cellar, and there was a feeling that Georgians were shelling right our building, from all their weapons. There was nothing good there," she recollected.

"We were sleeping, when bombardment began; we went down into the cellar and stayed there for four days. We had some stock with us, but we were unable to go upstairs and then get back. We went up to our flat just for seconds, when bombardment calmed down, to take some food for the child. Everything was on fire around..," Zalina Kokoeva, Anna Bichenova's mother-in-law, continued.

Refugees are now in shock, and it will take some time for them to realize the whole burden of their hardships, however, they understand already that they have remained without homes and relatives, and they feel even worse, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

Now, psychologists, already sent to all the temporary accommodation camps, will try to help the refugees.