South Ossetia hosts ICRC photo show on warfare implications

The exhibition "People and Fate" by photographer Marco Kokic, organized by the Tskhinvali-based office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), presents images of individuals – refugees and orphans – victims of the military conflicts.

Marco Kokic, a member of the ICRC mission, has presented his photos taken in villages of South Ossetia affected by the conflict in August 2008.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has learnt from Maria Tedeeva, an ICRC representative and one of the organizers of the photo show, that the presented works narrate "mainly about the people who had suffered from armed conflicts and implications thereof, and who are helped by the ICRC. Despite the fact that there is no more war, there are people who are still unable to cope with the implications.

Earlier, similar exhibitions were held in Dagestan and Chechnya, and presented photos depicting old people and children living in temporary accommodation centres (TACs) in Ingushetia, large family and single mothers in Dagestan, older women in mourning clothes, mourning for their sons, who never returned home. The organizers note that "these images and the fate, as one, are repeated in Ingushetia and Chechnya, in Dagestan and South Ossetia."

"Marco Kokic had visited many conflict regions of the Caucasus. A year ago he travelled to South Ossetia and witnessed the consequences of military aggression and put the photos taken there into the scope of his works," Ms Tedeeva said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The foyer of the Tskhinvali Library, where an exhibition is deployed, has been already visited by more than a hundred pupils, students of the South-Ossetian State University (SOSU) and public activists. The photo exhibition was supplemented by lectures given to pupils and students.