Refugees are still evicted in Tbilisi

The internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Abkhazia, who had been accommodated in two temporary accommodation centres (TACs), kindergarten No. 204 in micro-district No. 2 in the district of Varketili, and the religious boarding school in Lotkin district in Tbilisi, received their eviction notification.

Both buildings were used as TACs after the war in August 2008: the Government of Georgia had provided the kindergarten and the school for refugees from South Ossetia as temporary shelters until the commissioning of refugees' camps in the city of Gori and the village of Tserovani. However, after eviction of South-Ossetian refugees the premises were occupied by refugees from Abkhazia, who had lived before that in rented apartments.

"Several times after 1993 we applied to the Ministry for Refugees asking them to provide any housing to us and many other refugees. However, they had such a long waiting list there, and such red tape among the officials that we had to rent an apartment for our own money in the Didube District. The landlady gradually raised the fee; and, finally, in summer of 2008 she set it at 400 laris per month. It was unbearable for our family; and we found ourselves in the street," a refugee Tamara Malazoniya told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"For 20 years we've received no housing from the state. Should we have occupied the same kindergarten after the war in Abkhazia in 1993, it had been legalized as our property long ago. However, we – as lawful residents – decided not to go in for arbitrariness; we decided to wait. Over these 20 years I spent 32,000 US dollars as rental fees. For this money we could have bought a flat! And today people like myself are punished by the government for breaking the law," said David Malazoniya, Tamara's husband.

"We categorically refuse to go anywhere: the places that they offer us – the villages of Bakurtsikhe, Potskho-Etseri, Lesichine and others – are unfit for residence: there is no employment there, no land for farming, no electricity and no water. Most of those people, who were evicted last year and this January, came back and now prefer renting apartments in Tbilisi, because here they can at least survive," the refugees explain.

According to David, many of his neighbours live only on the refugee allowance – 28 laris per month. Moreover, almost all of them took their allowances for five months in advance.

In February this year, a lady, the head of the Department for Working with NGOs of the above Ministry, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent said that after the evictions carried out in February, there would be more evictions; because there were no more officially registered TACs.