More mass graves to be opened to find Abkhazian conflict victims
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Eleven mass graves in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region and nearby territory will soon be opened to find and identify bodies of those missing since the Abkhazian conflict in the early 1990s.
See our multimedia story about the victims and survivors of the conflict here.
This agreement was reached after a meeting in Istanbul between Georgian and de-facto Abkhazian officials last week, Georgia’s Refugees Minister Sozar Subari said. The negotiations were held under the auspices of the International Red Cross Commission.
"This meeting organised by the Red Cross discussed only humanitarian issues; in particular the issue relating to the searching and transferring of missing fighters,” Subari said.
He assumed dozens of bodies would be transferred and identified once the mass graves are opened.
The Georgian-Abkhazian bilateral coordination mechanism worked within the framework of the International Red Cross Commission and aimed to find people lost during the 1992-1993 war.
As a result of the negotiations, 30 victims of the Babushera plane crash were unearthed from the Babushera mass grave in Abkhazia and transferred to Georgia last year.
The 30 people were among 132 people travelling on a plane from Tbilisi to Sokhumi, the capital city of Abkhazia, on September 22, 1993 when it was shot down while attempting to land at Babushera Airport. The aircraft crashed on the runway, killing 108 of the 132 people on board.
Five bodies unearthed at Babushera’s mass grave in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region have been identified and returned to their families.
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.
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.
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.