Azeri Border Guards Kidnap Villagers

Azeri Border Guards Kidnap Villagers

Inhabitants of villages along the Azerbaijan border have made several appeals to the government to improve the existing disorder on the Georgia–Azerbaijan border - but so far without any positive results.  The Azeri border guards constantly kidnap people on the pretext that they are trying to cross the border. They only free the villagers if they are paid the required ransom.

People are frequently kidnapped either from Matsimi, in the Lagodekhi district, or Erisimedi in the Signagi district, because these villages are close to the border. “When a boy was late, we went to look for him. I knew where to find him. I found ‘a Chief’ of the border guards and asked him where the boy was. They hid him until a common acquaintance got involved. Then, they admitted detaining the boy. I do not know what they planed to do with him”, states an inhabitant of Matsimi, Jumber Natroshvili.

According to the inhabitants, the Azeri guards trick children to cross the border and then detain them. “A ravine separates our village from Azerbaijan, where children often play. The border guards invite the children to talk with them or ask them to bring cigarettes. If a child goes up to them, they immediately snatch them. In order to get their children released, the Dzmanashvili family paid the prosecutor’s office $250 USD. We applied to everybody we could; asking them to stop the activities the border guards inflict upon the local inhabitants. However, the guards are indifferent”, say the inhabitants of Matsimi, who cannot hide their frustration.

Kidnapping became especially common last year. The privatized lands of the village of Matsimi are on the border. The inhabitants use the ravine to collect water. Some people go looking for wood, some for water and cross the border without even realizing it. The Azeri border guards then arrest them without any explanation. The population have asked the regional administration and MPs for help for several times, although, apart from empty promises they have obtained nothing. 

Tariel Danelia, Head of the Border Protection Regional Department #6, refuses to acknowledge the existence of cases of kidnapping by the Azeri border guard. He says that the Azerbaijan Border Protection Department officials have changed recently, thus the situation has improved.

Contrary to Danelia’s statement, the residents of the village of Erisimedi, which is in the Signagi district, also raise claims against the government. “The Azerbaijan border lies several meters from the settled territory of the village. The cattle often cross the border. Thus, we have to cross the border to get the cattle back. The guards detain us and place in the Zakatala commandant’s office. If we do not pay them money, we are taken to a so called ‘cell’. Even women are being arrested for crossing the border. Sometimes we manage to voice our demands to the authorities but they are not addressed. Once, Petre Tsiskarishvili, the Governor of the Kakheti region, visited our village. However, he could not stay more than an hour because of the mosquitoes here. Nobody has appeared since that time.

We manage, somehow, to get people released from the Azeri guard, but it is impossible to get back any cattle that cross the border”, say the hopeless inhabitants of Erisimedi who ask: “Does the government remember that there is a village called Erisimedi in the Signagi district; where we live in such unbearable conditions that we are forced to look for a job in Azerbaijan, or even to leave Georgia in order to support our families?”

Gela Mtivlishvili from Kakheti