People remain in limbo a month after Russia closed border with Georgia – TV

NTV, Moscow
6 Oct 04

[Presenter] Hundreds of people have been caught between two
states. Russia announced the closure of its border for people crossing
from Georgia. Tbilisi promised to solve the problem quickly. But
passengers on scheduled buses and lorry drivers have been living in
their vehicles for over a month.

Here reporting from the so-called neutral territory is Nugzar
Kereselidze.

[Correspondent] In the Dariali Gorge on the Georgian military road 50
lorries and buses have been caught in a stubborn trap. Having passed
through the Lars border crossing in Georgia they did not manage to get
across the so-called neutral zone of a sector of the Russian-Georgian
border under review when Russia closed its frontier. The official
reason for the closure of the border was the Beslan tragedy, and the
necessity to apprehend all the people involved in the terrorist
attack. The closure was made unexpectedly in the course of a few
hours. For this reason hundreds of vehicles piled up on both sides. In
the course of the next few days their number even increased, partly
because the Georgian authorities gave a promise, as is said, to come
to an agreement about opening the border. However, a month later
passengers from Armenia are living in buses. There are many women and
children among them.

[Unidentified woman] People have been here for a month and two
days. They are living or surviving. It’s worse than survival. There
are children, sick people and old people. And the older people are
suffering. In the evening it’s cold. Really cold.

[Correspondent] When the passengers ran out of the food they had
brought with them the drivers came to their aid with food that was
beginning to go off. What had actually gone bad was thrown into the
river Terek. A businessman from Yerevan, (?Artur Bagasyan), had to get
rid of 30 tonnes of peaches.

Several vehicles from Azerbaijan, Belarus and other countries turned
round and went to Russia through South Ossetia using the Roki tunnel
where the border had not been closed. This caused bewilderment in
Tbilisi.

[Korneli Salia, chief of headquarters at the Georgian Department of
State Border Protection, captioned] Russia did not close this sector,
which we don’t understand. It turns out that Russian official bodies
support the separatists prospering in South Ossetia.

[Correspondent] More and more freight has now started passing into
Russia through South Ossetia, despite the fact that a lot of money has
to be paid for escorts and security. But businessmen have no
choice. They agree to pay more rather than lose everything.