For the first time in years, a group of Georgian internally displaced persons (IDPs) will be able to look at their apartment and call it their own.
Today the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia granted apartments to 68 IDP families.
A boarding school in Georgia’s second largest city, Kutaisi, has been renovated into an apartment block to become the new home for 68 IDPs and their families.
For these people, it will be the first time in many years they will possess their own home.
The old boarding school was located on Chavchavadze St and was renovated into a modern apartment block.
The Ministry trawled through more than 1,500 applications from IDPs who previously lived in Abkhazia and Samachablo (South Ossetia) before it selected the 68 successful families.
The applicants had temporarily settled in Imereti, Guria, Racha – Lechkhumi regions of Georgia.
Minister Davit Darakhvelidze said a further 138 internally displaced families will be granted with apartments in the near future.
On April 28 the Government launched a project to provide long-term housing for Georgia’s IDPs. The project, valued at 107 million GEL, would see the construction of new residential apartments throughout Georgia. It was implemented by the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia.
When Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili visited Zugdidi in western Georgia on April 2, he spoke about the adventurous project and the benefits it would offer IDPs.
Since the conflicts of the1990s and the 2008 August War, Georgia has experienced a high influx of IDPs.
Conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia during the 1990s caused around 236,000 people to become internally displaced. Later, as a result of the Georgia-Russia war in August 2008, 17,000 people had to flee their homes.
A United Nations report released on May 15 revealed there were at least 206,000 IDPs in Georgia.