Aid Continues to Displaced Georgians

August 26, 2008—While the separatist Georgian province of South Ossetia is under a fragile cease-fire, food and emergency supplies continue to reach displaced families in need.

The conflict between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia forced an estimated 128,000 Georgians from their homes. Displaced people poured into Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and are now waiting in temporary shelters set up in schools and other public buildings.

The children in the shelters are frightened, says a volunteer with Catholic Relief Services' local partner, Caritas Georgia. "They're afraid to go outside," says another volunteer. "If they hear a loud sound, they're scared." Volunteers have gathered not just essential items, but also toys for the shelters, reports a CRS regional information officer in her recent blog entry from Georgia.

"Despite the insecurity, our team is safe and is working on helping the innocent victims of the violence," says Mark Schnellbaecher, CRS' regional director for Europe and the Middle East.

Reaching the Displaced

With support from CRS, Caritas is on the ground providing thousands of desperate families with hot meals and emergency supplies, such as hygiene items, bed linen and mattresses. In Tbilisi, Caritas is now feeding 2,660 people a day. For the tens of thousands without relatives with whom they can stay, government-appointed shelters in old buildings are the only option.

Assessments based on staff visits to shelters in Tbilisi indicate a continued need for food and hygiene supplies as well as medicine, psychosocial counseling and care for pregnant women.

"The government left us here, and didn't bring us any food. But Caritas came," said one person at the Isani shelter, a former military hospital that is now home to 1,800 people who left their homes to escape bombings. For two weeks, the Isani shelter was without electricity or running water. In the schools, many people are sleeping on the floors or putting wooden desks together to sleep on. A group sleeping in a kindergarten wasn't receiving enough food. "We sat hungry for two days," says a displaced resident named Lena.

Caritas was able to provide her shelter with food and emergency supplies.

When the fighting erupted two weeks ago, CRS dispatched an assessment team to Tbilisi to figure out the needs at shelters and hospitals. In a shelter in Tbilisi, a construction worker whose large extended family lives with others in one room tugs on his worn white shirt. "This is what I was able to bring with me. Nothing else," he says, explaining how he fled his village near the bombed city of Tskhinvali.

The assessment team also traveled to the Imereti region in western Georgia, where local officials told them that they were the first foreigners they had seen since the conflict began.

In Imereti, CRS is working with our partner Abkhazintercont to provide aid to more than 1,000 displaced people.

An additional 30,000 people have fled from South Ossetia to North Ossetia, located in Russia. Caritas Russia and other groups are serving them.

Our Work in Georgia

Working with local Church partners, CRS has helped improve the lives of Georgians for many years. The agency opened an office in the country in 2003. In addition to raising awareness of human trafficking there, we have supported projects that ensure good governance and media freedom. We have also refurbished playgrounds and created libraries and a youth center.