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Residents of Nikozi Village Are still In Danger

January 20, 2010

Gunshots are still heard in the village of Nikozi. Scared population hides in basements. The situation is more complicated in upper Nikozi which is near Tskhinvali. Several houses in the village are on the occupied territory. After the war in August of 2008 when Russian military troops left occupied villages of the district and Georgian police and EU monitoring mission entered there, intensive fire in the direction of these villages stopped, population returned to their homes, but villagers in upper Nikozi are afraid to send their children to school because each gunshot scares people who live near so called border.

Recently, according to the residents of Nikozi village, representatives of Ossetian and Russian armed forces start shooting on holidays. Villagers do not exclude that shooting is connected with controversy between criminal formations which exists in de-facto republic, but mostly the fire is opened by drunken soldiers. According to the residents of the village Nikozi, although there is Georgian police post near the village entrance, residents do not feel themselves protected.

The meeting of the group working on incident prevention in conflict regions was not arranged for a long time. That’s why it is impossible to react on each incident. Ossetian part does not intend to take part in the meeting until Georgia does not release arrested de-facto republic citizens and start looking for missing people.

According to the last information, Ossetian part requests to release 39 detainees arrested before August war and to look for 7 missing citizens. Georgia is not going to release prisoners detained for grave crimes.

Goga Aptsiauri, Radio “Liberty”

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