Georgian and Abkhaz officials to meet face to face in Istanbul
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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 victims of the Abkhazia crisis (1992-1994) back to Georgia.
Minister Davit Darakhvelidze and Deputy Minister Nino Chavchavadze are in Istanbul, Turkey, to meet representatives of the de-facto Government of Abkhazia face-to-face to discuss ways of bringing the bodies of the remaining conflict victims home.
The first meetings between Georgian officials and representatives from the de-facto Government of Abkhazia, which started in October 2013, were successful. In May this year authorities began to excavate graves at Babushera Cemetery following long-time Georgian-Abkhazian negotiations.
On September 20, 1993, during the Abkhaz war, a plane carrying more than 120 people from Tbilisi was shot down while landing at Babushera Airport in Sokhumi. The event happened a few days before Tbilisi lost the battle for Sukhumi on September 27, 1993. The bodies of 31 Georgians who died in a plane crash in Abkhazia have since returned home, 21 years on from the tragedy.
Minister Darakhvelidze said Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili believed Georgia would have to spend some money to fast-track the return of other remains. He said dialogue between Georgian and Abkhazian officials was continuing and parties were negotiating how to find the graves of those who were lost during the conflict.
Minister Darakhvelidze said the negotiations were being held with mediation from the Red Cross.
"We will hold meetings in the next three days and inform society about its results after we return. Georgia's position is to fasten the process since the problem has been ongoing for a long time," Darakhvelidze said.
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.
The bodies of 31 Georgians who died in a plane crash in Abkhazia have returned home, 21 years on from the tragedy.
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.
Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili has appealed to anyone having information on people who went missing due to the 1992-1993 war in Abkhazia region and 2008
Russia-Georgia war to inform the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The body of Mikheil Jincharadze who died in the fight in the town of Gagra, Abkhazia in 1992 was brought home 25 years after his death thanks to the efforts by the Georgian government and his own relatives living in Abkhazia.