Interior Minister says “large number” of citizens who left country since 2012 have returned

Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri on Wednesday told the Parliament a “large part” of the 800,000 citizens who had left the country since 2012 had since returned.

The Minister told lawmakers the “same number of people have [since] returned to the country, maybe about 2,000 people less”, after domestic opposition’s criticism of related numbers.

For example, after the war, many people came from Ukraine who had lost their citizenship. Also, many people who were born in Georgia and no longer had citizenship were Russian citizens”, he said.

Gomelauri said visa liberalisation agreements had “made it easier for people to travel to other countries”.

This does not happen only in our country. For example, people from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania go to Germany. [People] go to where they believe they will have a higher salary. I would be happy to have all our citizens back and have the best conditions with us too”, he told MPs.

He also told the legislators statistics on migration were measured by the National Statistics Office and not the Interior Ministry.