All Georgian victims of Babushera tragedy return home
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The bodies of 31 Georgians who died in a plane crash in Abkhazia have returned home, 21 years on from the tragedy.
Eighteen bodies found in mass grave in Abkhazia at Sokhumi’s Babushera Airport were transferred from the Abkhazian capital to Tbilisi today while the bodies of 13 other victims were brought home earlier this month.
A plane carrying more than 120 people from Tbilisi was shot down while landing at Babushera Airport in Sokhumi on September 20, 1993, during the Abkhaz war. The event happened a few days before Tbilisi lost the battle for Sukhumi on September 27, 1993.
See the video of the Babushera Airport incident in Sokhumi in September 1993. Property of Georgia's Public Broadcaster.
Authorities began to excavate the graves at the Babushera cemetery on May 8 following long-time Georgian-Abkhazian negotiations.
The officials are now tasked with identifying the bodies so they can be returned to their relatives.
The identifying process is believed to take about six months, said Georgia’s Minister of Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees David Darakhvelidze today.
He claimed on May 27, a mass grave in Tbilisi would also be opened and if examinations proved there were Abkhazians among the unidentified bodies, they would also be returned home to Sokhumi.
To date, 47 bodies have been transferred from the Abkhazian grave site to Tbilisi. The last transfer happened in 2001.
Four of the 47 bodies have been reburied by victims’ families. Forty-three lie in the Vashlijvari Cemetery in Tbilisi while 22 remain unidentified.
International experts are set to take part in the identification process of the unidentified remains. DNA samples would be taken from victims’ family members and matched with DNA taken from the deceased to help discover who they are.
"The history of the war in Abkhazia and this particular tragedy has been an unhealed pain for our society and this wound could be reopened today but it is important that families and future generations have their heroes' graves buried according to traditions and rules," Minister Darakhvelidze said.
Abkhazia, which lies on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, is one of the two breakaway regions of Georgia currently occupied by Russian forces.
It's been 21 years since the Babushera tragedy in Abkhazia and the bodies of thirteen Georgians who died in the crash are finally being returned home. A plane carrying more than 120 people from Tbilisi was shot down while landing at Babushera Airport in Sokhumi on September 20, 1993, during the Abkhaz war.
Excavation of Georgian remains found in a mass grave in Abkhazia at Sokhumi’s Babushera Airport in September 1993 has begun, with authorities hoping to identify the remains and return the bodies’ home to Georgia.
Georgian officials from the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia are heading abroad to speed up the process of returning the bodies of the victims of the Abkhazia crisis(1992-1994) back to Georgia.
A meeting between Georgian and representatives of the de-facto Government of beakaway Abkhazia met face-to-face and agreed to excavate cemeteries in Georgia and Abkhazia and return victims of the Abkhaz crisis to their hometowns.
Four bodies unearthed at Babushera’s mass grave in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region have been identified, enabling a Georgian woman who has dressed in black for the past 21 years to finally give her loved ones a proper burial.
Four soldiers who died in a plane crash while on a military mission 21 years ago have been buried with full military honours at the Digomi Brothers’ Cemetery today.
Georgian Ministry of Refugees officials and representatives of the de-facto Abkhazian government met today under the auspices of the International Red Cross Commission where they discussed issues relating to the searching and transferring of bodies of those missing since the Georgia-Abkhazian conflict in the early 1990s.
The bodies of 12 Georgians found in mass grave in Abkhazia, at Sokhumi’s Babushera Airport have been identified and returned to their loved ones for an honourable burial.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced today that the remains of another 22 people who went missing due to the 1992–93 armed conflict in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region have been identified and will be handed over to their families shortly.
The remains of 22 fighters who went missing due to the 1992–93 armed conflict in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region were buried today at the Digomi Brothers’ Cemetery.