An elderly man from the Kaspi district is the latest Georgian citizen to be detained by Russian soldiers at the so-called occupation line near Georgia’s breakaway Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) region.
The kidnapping comes one day after international conflict resolution experts, members of the de-facto authority of Tskhinvali and representatives of Georgia's central government discussed such instances of detained and missing persons.
As of 4pm today, the whereabouts of 72-year-old Dimitri Ananiashvili was still unknown. Kaspi authorities assumed the man had been taken to the Russian military base in Tskhinvali after he disappeared this morning.
Georgia’s Interior Ministry and the European Union’s Monitoring Mission in Georgia are currently trying to negotiate with the occupants to release the elderly man from his unlawful detention.
Russian soldiers detained Ananiashvili when he was shepherding cattle in the Sakorintlo village this morning. It is believed he was detained for "illegally crossing the administrative border”.
This was the second detention near the occupation line in Kaspi this month. Three other Georgian citizens who were earlier abducted returned home from Tskhinvali prison after their families paid a fine earlier today.
The men said they spent two days in prison in Tskhinvali where they were "very poorly treated”, having no food, no water and no beds to sleep.
Local authorities in Kaspi said they assumed Ananiashvili, who was detained this morning, would "hopefully get free” in two days’ time.