In Tbilisi, policemen force refugees out of TACs

Today, Georgian policemen have evicted refugees from South Ossetia and Abkhazia away from several temporary accommodation centres (TACs) in Tbilisi. In some places refugees rendered resistance claiming that they did not agree to settle in rural areas where they were offered alternative accommodations.

At 6:00 a.m. the policemen drove to the kindergarten building located in micro-district No. 2 in the district of Varketili in Tbilisi, where refugees have been living for five years already. The day before refugees received an official eviction notification, but refused to leave the kindergarten building. They settled on the ground floor of the building and barricaded the iron entrance door. At about 8:00 a.m., after two hours of talks, the policemen cut off the latticed door.

"When they broke into the building, we poured them with gasoline from bottles, which we had ready at hands. But they used the fire extinguishers at once, so no one was injured. I think, at the same time the policemen used tear gas, because a suffocating smoke appeared and we all started coughing," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Tamara Malazoniya, a resident of the temporary accommodation centre.

The refugees residing in the kindergarten have been preparing for eviction for a long time, since the Ministry for Internally Displacement Persons, Resettlement and Refugees already warned that they would be handed in an eviction notification. Therefore, for two days already the refugees slept on the floor in front of the entrance door of the kindergarten. They spread mattresses on the bare floor and spent two nights without sleeping, waiting for a police storm. However, attempts to hinder the work of the law enforcement agencies have failed: today to 3:00 p.m. most things were transported away.

Most of the refugees claim that they do not agree to settle in rural areas where they are offered alternative accommodations.

"I have been am living in Tbilisi for almost 20 years already and I work here in construction. I would rather rent an apartment and feed my children with wages from construction projects than go to a village where I could not find a job," says Georgi Gaguliya, a refugee from Abkhazia.

According to Otar Ioseliani, the representative of the NGO Refugee Rights Coalition, in July and August a new wave of evictions of refugees from Abkhazia living in Georgia will take place.