Social Conditions of Internally Displaced People in Zugdidi District

Nearly 160 thousand people live in Zugdidi district with about 60 thousand of them Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Abkhazia. There is much unemployment. No businesses, factories or mills operate there. But the living conditions are particularly hard for those IDPs who live outside Zugdidi, especially for those living in distant villages.

In the village of Anaklia, about 150 internally displaced people live in cottages (which number 20) near the seaside. A big proportion of them are women, children and old people. Most of the cottages are damaged; there are not even minimal living conditions. A flood in the winter further damaged the houses.

Though local representatives of the Abkhazian Internally Displaced Government assisted each family with 360GEL, the IDPs say this money was not enough even to fix the roofs. Somehow the problem of drinking water was solved; the IDPs dug wells themselves; though it transpired that the water smelled terribly and had strange taste. Families with 2-3 children are live in one small room.

Very often the problem of electricity adds to the water problem. After having been communally metered, the IDP families were to be given individual meters in the district, but this has not been done yet. The communal meters mean the IDPs in Anaklia are usually have their electricity cut off when the population in the neighboring villages of Darcheli and Kakhati have not paid their bills (as we learnt, this occurs every month).

The cost of electricity - 8 laris per person in the summer and 10 laris in the winter, is paid to the energy distribution company. Despite this, the IDPs in Anaklia have had no electricity, in 40 degrees heat, for three days. The hard life of IDPs gets even harder when they have to collect wood both in winter and summer to cook their meals.

More complicated is the situation with IDPs living near the Zugdidi Tuberculosis Centre. There is a rubbish dump made by the population there. The area is extremely polluted; snakes inhabit the ponds, which have turned into a marsh. The refugees say reptiles tend to enter their houses too. Here, the people have had a problem with drinking water for seven years. They say they have applied to their representatives at the local government but the problem is still unsolved.

The polluted air, environment and heat results in acute infectious and skin diseases among the refugees. Several children were promptly taken to Tbilisi, but those from poor families are treated at home and very often, without any success.

The IDPs are asking for help. They have to live in similar conditions in Zugdidi, on the site of the porcelain factory. They say that the politicians and the government used to visit them, during the election campaign, and now they are left to the mercy of the God until the next one.
 

Nato Berulava, Zugdidi