Residents of South Ossetia tell about hardships during five-day war

Eleven years ago, in South Ossetia, doctors operated day and night on the wounded in the basement; loaders transported bread under bombings; and villagers got out of the war zone into refugee camps, participants in the events have recollected.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that from August 6 to the morning of August 9, the South-Ossetian-Georgian border was closed in connection with the events held on the anniversary of the Five Day War. Residents of South Ossetia commemorated their relatives who perished in the war.

According to Arthur Gagloev, a farmer, he and his fellow villagers left on the first day the war by crawling through the forest. His family returned on August 12, when Russian troops were already in the city.

"There was devastation; in every street there were funerals of the killed militias and civilians ... It was a terrible time. It took years for the traces of the war to be erased somehow," Mr Gagloev has noted. He believes that Georgia should admit its wrongdoing.

Grigory Kulidjanov, an oncologist, told how in August 2008, doctors operated on wounded civilians and South-Ossetian militaries in the basement of the hospital.

Movers under shelling transported bread around the city, said Vadim Tskhovrebov, the director of the bakery. Two drivers, Eduard Pukhaev and Alexander Ikaev, died under shelling, when they were transporting bread.

According to Mr Tskhovrebov, a dialogue with Georgia is possible only after Georgia recognizes the independence of South Ossetia.

The warfare brought sufferings to many residents of South Ossetia and Georgia, journalists and human rights defenders wrote. Some of the hardest memories of the five-day war for residents of Georgia are associated with Russian air strikes and tanks near Tbilisi.