World | Other World Stories
South Ossetians flee cellars for safety in Russia
A safe haven in Russia was almost within sight for refugees from South Ossetia's besieged capital on Monday as they waited in parched streets for buses to ferry them over the border.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:22 August 11, 2008
- Russia seizes Georgia base
- Russia seeks emergency meeting with Nato
- Russia rejects Georgia ceasefire offer
- Georgia to bring home Iraq contingent
- Georgia parliament approves a 'state of war'
- Putin arrives in region next to conflict
- Sarkozy proposes three-point plan to end fighting
- Georgia and Russia to stay at Olympics despite conflict
- Russia in control of South Ossetian capital
Java: A safe haven in Russia was almost within sight for refugees from South Ossetia's besieged capital yesterday as they waited in parched streets for buses to ferry them over the border.
Java, between South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali and the border with Russian North Ossetia, has become a staging area for people fleeing cellars where they hid from Georgian shelling that Moscow says has nearly destroyed their city.
Some wearing only dressing gowns and sneakers, they fled Tskhinvali carrying plastic bags of clothes and documents, and some scant food supplies.
Some had walked down through the mountains and slept in forests to get to Java, where buses collected them for the journey to the North Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz.
Russian artillery fired from Java's outskirts as columns of tanks, armoured vehicles, howitzers and rocket launchers flowed in. South Ossetian men wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles and wearing flip-flops loitered in the shade.
"There is so much machinery flowing in from both sides. I am afraid the fighting will be so fierce there won't be a house left standing," said Zaira Slanova, aged 70, a retired engineer from Tskhinvali.
Related Links
She was waiting for her sister, aged 77, to join her in Java for the short ride to Vladikavkaz. Her children, who live in Moscow, had arranged transport over the border, she said.
Days of hiding
Slanova said she had spent four days hiding in a cellar as Georgian troops shelled Tskhinvali. Two days into the siege, a man was killed by a mortar on the street outside.
"We all suffered two days from the terrible stench of putrefaction as he was decomposing in the scorching heat," Slanova said. "So we just buried him on the spot where he died."
South Ossetia maintains close ties with its Russian North Ossetia. Most of South Ossetia's 70,000 people hold Russian citizenship, entitling them to Russian state benefits.
More from Other World Stories
More from World
News Editor's choice
-
6,000 cups and counting: Addicted to that tea
This cafeteria in Al Mamzar attracts thousands of customers daily, including the rich and not so rich
-
Swimming pool horror: Twins hospitalised
Twins rushed to hospital after collapsing from chlorine inhalation at swimming pool in their villa
-
Play your cards right with credit card interest
UAE Central Bank plans to cap interest rates, but are you paying thirty-five per cent now?
