Gori Refugee Department Has No Resources

Gori Refugee Department Has No Resources

Socially vulnerable internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Tskhinvali have been left without any allowance. Not a tetri is foreseen for them by the local Authority. Leila Samkharadze, chief of the ‘Christian Orthodox Community’, Gori branch, has been pressing the local Authority to aid the Tskhinvali IDPs. Instead of agreeing to aid those in need, the Governor’s administration has instead ordered that Samkharadze not be allowed to enter the building.

The point is that during Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli’s visit to Gori, Leila Samkharadze managed to hand a letter to him, in which she described the poor conditions of Mariam Nikorashvili, an IDP from the Ossetian village of Frisi in detail.

Leila Samkharadze states: “These people have no income to live on. In the case of death, they do not have money even to be buried. This financial embarrassment was the reason for several people’s death. Those in the authorities might think about homeless Mariam Nikoleishvili, who was given a shelter in the village of Dici. Their living conditions are critical. They live in a cattle-shed. The village councilor does not aid them at all. When her husband died, nobody supported her financially, even with the burial.”

Leila Samkharadze says that Noghaideli sent a letter to the Minister of Refugees and Accommodation to respond to. The Minister, Kheviashvili, sent the letter back to the Gori Regional Administration and Refugees Depatment. Leila Samkharadze, having arrived at the Regional Administration Office, was forcefully made to leave the building. Samkharadze was bothering the Deputy Governors about Nikolaishvili’s case nearly every day. One of the Deputy Governors ordered the guards not to let her in the building. As for a written response - it is but a dream.

Manana Chumburidze, chief of the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation, Gori branch, discussed the letter sent to her by the Minister.

Manana Chumburidze states: “The department has discussed the case of Mariam Nikorashvili, the IDP from the village of Frisi in the Tskhinvali region, who is currently living in the Gori region in the village of Dici. Her living conditions do not really meet any standards of shelter for IDP’s. As the Refugees Department has no funds to improve the IDP’s social conditions, the Refugees and IDPs Regional Department in Gori will aid the Nikorashvilis, by giving them wood for the winter. As for the expenses of her husband’s burial, since June of this year, the local Government has renewed the allotment of funds for IDPs’ burial expenses, which was financed by transfer last year but was abolished in January of this year for unknown reasons. Thus, Mrs. Nikorashvili will receive the so called ‘burial expense’ for her husband after she produces a certificate of his death, and she has already been informed about it”

Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori