75 foreign diplomats face barbed wire 'border'
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Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has hosted a diplomatic tour where non-resident and resident Ambassadors accredited in Georgia visited the occupation line and found themselves facing barbed wire fences.
Diplomats from 75 countries visited Georgia within the diplomatic tour for the third time, while 22 non-resident Ambassadors arrived in Georgia within the framework of the tour.
Within the tour, the Ambassadors visited the occupation line near Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) region, a breakaway region of Georgia which is now occupied by Russia. There they witnessed the difficult conditions of how locals live in the conflict zone.
Visit to the barbed wired zone seems to be impressive for the foreign diplomats.
The Ambassador of Sweden to Georgia Martina Quick shared her impressions on her official Twitter accont:
Visiting the ABL with Russian-occupied #SouthOssetia at #Khurvaleti on @MFAgovge#diplomatictrip 2015 pic.twitter.com/wb8JGGYfAt
— Martina Quick (@martinaquick) May 25, 2015
Read more about the reality of Georgian citizens who went to bed in Georgia and woke up in so-called South Ossetia one perfect morning in Lali Tsertvadze's article "Easter behind barbed wire".
This year’s tour was fully dedicated to Georgia’s seaside. The diplomats visited Batumi, Georgia’s Black Sea coastal city, where the local government briefed guests of the region’s tourist and investment potential.
Initially the diplomats took a train from Gori to Batumi, which informed them about the operations of Georgian railways.
The Foreign Ministry said these kinds of tours were a good opportunity for diplomats to get a better idea of the situation in the country.
Two more Georgian citizens have been detained by Russian soldiers today – the same day conflict resolution experts discussed possible ways to stop these kinds of detentions near the occupation line.
Ten Georgian citizens who were illegally detained by Russian soldiers near the occupation line have been released.
All cases of human rights violation in Georgia’s occupied regions have been collated into one document for the global community to review.
A documentary film by Georgian director Toma Chagelishvili, shot at a Georgian village at the centre of Russia’s creeping occupation, was awarded with a special prize by the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).
European officials have come face-to-face with the harsh reality facing dozens of locals when they visited a village along the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) between Russian-occupied Tskhinvali region (South Ossetia) and the rest of Georgia.
A Latvian high official is in Georgia and learning about the challenges facing locals at the occupation line separating Georgia with one of it's breakaway regions.