Gov’t creates commission to find bodies of 2,300 missing during armed conflicts
2,500 are considered missing since the armed conflicts in Georgia in the 1990s and in 2008. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
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The Georgian government has created a commission uniting 10 different state agencies to find the burial sites and identify the bodies of 2,300 individuals who went missing during the armed conflicts in Georgia in the 1990s and in 2008.
Georgian Reconciliation Minister Ketevan Tsikhelashvili says that in total up to 2,500 individuals were missing.
Through cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the thanks to the Georgian-Abkhaz and the Georgian-Russian-Ossetian special mechanisms 187 burial sites have been opened and 178 individuals have been identified since 2010. However, up to 2,300 are still missing and it is the obligation of the Georgian government to take all measures to find their whereabouts,” Tsikhelashvili said.
She said that the goal of the commission is to cooperate actively with the Red Cross, using the existing mechanisms with the occupied regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali.
The remains of seven Georgian civilians killed during the Russia-Georgia war in 2008 have been identified and transferred to Tbilisi from the country’s occupied Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) region, the Georgian State Security Service reported earlier today.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) chaired a meeting regarding the search for people who went missing during the 1992-93 armed conflict in Abkhazia on December 4, in Yerevan.
Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili has paid tribute to the fallen soldiers whose bodies were lost in the breakaway Abkhazia territory for 23 years before they were returned home for an honourable burial.
A meeting between Georgian and representatives of the de-facto Government of beakaway Abkhazia met face-to-face and agreed to excavate cemeteries in Georgia and Abkhazia and return victims of the Abkhaz crisis to their hometowns.
The remains of 13 people who went missing during the 1992–93 armed conflict in Georgia’s Russia-occupied Abkhazia region have been identified and returned to their families. It was possible to identify the bodies of eight military servicemen and five civilians through the joint efforts of the Georgian State Ministry for Reconciliation and Civic Equality and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The remains of five individuals who went missing during the 1992-93 armed conflict in Georgia’s Russia-occupied Abkhazia region have been identified and returned to their families.
The issue of unconditional release of Georgian citizens illegally detained by de facto authorities of the Russian-occupied regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) was in focus of a meeting between Grigol Liluashvili, the Head of the State Security Service of Georgia and Severine Chappaz, the Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross Delegation in Georgia, the State Security Service said on Wednesday.