Shooting on South Ossetian and Abkhazian borders

Shooting took place near the administrative border of Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia on October 19, states the Georgian Interior Ministry. No one was injured but several houses were seriously damaged, as shown in Georgian TV reports.

Shota Utiashvili, spokesperson for the Ministry, said that the shooting began at Khurcha, a village close to the border. “Mortars and grenade launchers opened fire from Abkhazian territory towards the Georgian village,” Utiashvili said. He confirmed that no one was injured, but he had no information about the reason for the attack.

Lela Vekua, a resident of Zugdidi, a Georgian town near Khurcha, said that the incident lasted for about 20 minutes. “We were woken up at six o’clock in the morning by the shooting. It was so loud and seemed to be so close that we thought a skirmish was taking place here in the town,” Vekua told The Messenger. An aggressive incident in Khurcha is not unusual. Two weeks ago, during shelling conducted from Abkhaz separatist positions, a Georgian policeman was killed.

Later on October 19 Georgian media reported that another shooting incident had occurred in Abkhazia. Georgian TV station Rustavi 2 reported that in the village of Nabakevi in the Gali district, Russian occupation soldiers and militiamen and separatist border guards had a confrontation. Reportedly, a Russian armoured personnel carrier was fired on while it was passing through the village. In the ensuing shootout, three Russians were wounded and taken to hospital in Sokhumi.

The situation in South Ossetia is also tense. On October 18 the official Press Service of the breakaway region reported that South Ossetian troops had been attacked from Georgian police positions in the Georgian village of Nikozi, located near the administrative border of South Ossetia. The South Ossetian de facto Interior Minister stated that fire had been opened from machine guns but had claimed no casualties. The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed that brief shooting, lasting a couple of minutes, did take place but that it seemed that “drunken Russian soldiers” were responsible, as they were just firing aimlessly. “Now of course they [separatists] are accusing us,” he added.

A spokesperson of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM) said that monitors in the region had heard the Nikozi shooting, but were still trying to find out exactly what had happened.