22:00, 4 January 2011

A child shot down in Georgia on the New Year's night

Giorgi Chkoidze aged 12 was shot down from a shotgun on the balcony of his house in Tbilisi. The man who had shot, the boy's neighbour, yielded to the police on his own accord.

"On December, 31, at exactly 12 o'clock, when everybody went out to the balconies to shoot from firecrackers a boy and his father in the opposite section went out and launched the firecrackers, too. In the sixth floor of the another section our neighbour, a man of about forty of fifty, went out, too and started firing from a pistol. He shot three times, one bullet punched out the balcony in the ninth floor and got right into the boy's heart", Anna Merabova, a neighbour of the Chkoidzes told us.

Giorgi Lomtatidze, the one who shot, has already admitted his guilt, "Echo of the Caucasus" reports.

Shooting on the New Year's night is a tradition which appeared in Georgia about 20 years ago. In order to stop this shooting Georgian authorities have established a special fine.