Authorities of North Ossetia and UN agencies agree on joint addressing forced migrants' problems

The today's meeting in Vladikavkaz of the Head of North Ossetia Taimuraz Mamsurov with Gesche Karrenbrock, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Russia, has ended with an agreement on continuation and strengthening of cooperation with the aim to settle the problem of forced migrants.

In the course of the talks, the Head of North Ossetia has informed the UN officials on the measures undertaken by the authorities to accommodate forced migrants. During the last three years, Taimuraz Mamsurov has specified, in total, 350 million roubles were spent to settle the problem.

"During the last fifteen years, with support of the federal centre and the UNHCR, the problems of forced migrants from Georgia and South Ossetia were solved quite successfully, however the events of last August have considerably worsened the situation," Mr Mamsurov has ascertained. "Many of those who could have made a decision to come back to Georgia, to the places of their former residence, cannot make it today; and the reason is quite clear."

According to the Department of the Federal Migratory Service, today some 12,000 forced migrants live in North Ossetia in 40 Temporary Accommodation Centres (TACs). Basically, these are citizens who had left the internal districts of Georgia in early 1990s; there are also those who were forced to abandon their homes as a result of the August events.

According to the authorities of the Republic, migrants have to live in poorly adapted premises; and in such conditions outbreaks of socially hazardous diseases are probable.

It has become known to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the UNHCR officials headed by Ms Karrenbrock, who arrived on February 2 to North Ossetia, paid a visit to School 1 in Beslan and laid flowers in the Memorial Cemetery where the victims of the terror act of September 1-3, 2004, were buried.

After the meeting, the UN delegation visited one of the TACs located in Gizel village in the Prigorodny District.

According to the "Caucasian Knot", after North Ossetia, the members of the UN mission plan to visit Ingushetia and Chechnya.