71 eco-migrant families receive homes in Georgia’s Kvemo Kartli region

About 71 families who moved away from their home areas due to landslide risk, earthquakes or other natural disasters are the happy owners of new apartments in Tetritskharo, a town in the country’s southeastern Kvemo Kartli region.

These people are known as eco-migrants and today they were granted ownership rights to apartments by the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia.

Since the initiative began the current Government has granted apartment ownership rights to 285 eco-migrant families who were forced to leave their homes due to ecological instability.

Before the end of the year about 100 additional eco-migrant families will also be gifted new apartments, said the Ministry today.

Before the end of the year about 100 additional eco-migrant families will also be gifted new apartments. Photo by mra.gov.ge

Since 2013 the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia has purchased 300 houses in all parts of Georgia. Previously 27 other eco-migrant families were gifted apartments in the Kvemo Kartli region.

The current number of eco-migrants in Georgia is unclear. Data from 2006 showed up to 37,000 families were registered as eco-migrants however this cannot be confirmed as there was no law that defined what it meant to be ecologically displaced or an agency that officially registered affected people and families.

The Government was now undertaking a nationwide project to formalise this data and determine how many eco-migrants there are in Georgia, define by law what it means to be displaced by a natural disaster and create a comprehensive database of affected people and families.

Part of this action will be to learn the reasons why families migrated and offer them official documents for their eco-migration.