Waffenruhe

... vorläufige Waffenruhe: Russia and Georgia agree on truce !

>Human Rights Watch visited a camp for the displaced in the village of Alagir and interviewed more than a dozen individuals, including those from Tskhinvali and neighboring villages. Those from the city reported spending more than three days in the basements of their houses, unable to come out because of the incessant shelling. Two individuals from Tskhinvali – a mother and her pregnant daughter – said their apartment building was severely damaged by shells and they only dared to come out of the basement on the fourth day, early in the morning of August 10, when Russian troops took full control of the city and started transporting local residents to a safe zone. They said the convoy consisted of six buses (about 27 people each), escorted by the military to the safety zone.

>Human Rights Watch obtained official figures on the number of displaced persons tallied by the Russian Operative Headquarters for Providing Humanitarian Assistance to the Residents of South Ossetia, located in Vladikavkaz. According to the documents provided to Human Rights Watch by a representative from the headquarters, from August 8 to the afternoon of August 10, the Federal Migration Service registered 24,032 persons who crossed the border from South Ossetia into Russia.

Gruß vom Henker

>One elderly man told Human Rights Watch: “I’ve never heard such heavy shelling in my life. For the first two days, I was hiding in the basement with my family. Finally, I tried to step outside. As I was outside, a shell hit the roof of the house. I fell to the ground and tried to bury myself under a tree. At that point, another shell hit the ground not far to me – I got my leg hurt by the fragments. I was so scared – I just started running away and left my family behind. Now no one can tell me what happened to my two sons, my daughter, and my two grandchildren. No one knows where they are.”