Rat-trap that refugees call home

THERE are rat droppings on the stairs to the basement, wires hang from the broken ceiling lights and cardboard is taped in place where glass once filled the window frames, yet this is home to dozens of families who are happy to have found refuge from the conflict that raged around them.

Located on the outskirts of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, the building is a crumbling block of soviet-style apartments — abandoned by their original inhabitants for better accommodation in better times. The sudden influx to the city of more than 100,000 refugees fleeing the Russians in August has given it a new, if unexpected, lease of life, however.

The families are mostly ethnic Georgians from the area in or near South Ossetia that, with Abkhazia, is one of the two breakaway provinces under Russian influence.

Some of them got a few hours warning to leave their homes; others heard the bombs dropping and shots being fired, while more fled after hearing that Russian tanks were on the way.

“It’s ethnic cleansing really,” explained Dr Mike McCarthy, a Kerryman who has lived in the region for the past nine years and is sponsoring some of the displaced families.

Khatuna Chitishvili with her husband and four children now live in two rooms with a single electric ring for cooking, a communal cold-water tap in the corridor and no proper toilet facilities.

They left their large comfortable house with nothing, just like most of the other 2,000 mainly Georgian inhabitants of their village of Akhalgori.

“Russian forces came into the village with tanks and there was panic. There were stories of what they were doing to the women especially. We took nothing except the children and got away in our car,” she said.

She reveals how her parents were left behind as there was not enough room for them

Her three daughters, aged from 14 to seven, go to school in an upstairs room of the building.

Her husband, she reveals, was a forest ranger who now has little to do around the muddy urban wasteland.

When asked about returning home he shrugs and suggests there is little hope of that unless the Russians move out.

“We were good friends with our Ossetian neighbours. They were godparents to three of our children,” he said.

On the floor above them there are 11 families living in similar conditions.

Milena Bugianishvili and her three children are among them.

They were given three hours to leave their homes by armed militia and after listening to bombs falling and shots being fired in nearby villages, they too fled with nothing.

She was also forced to leave her parents behind and when she visited them recently she found her house had been burned.

Dr McCarthy goes on to reveal that when the families arrived the big aid agencies like the UN had not had time to organise themselves. He and doctors working with his company, International Medical Support Services, provided food, clothing and medical services.

They collected money from local businesses, colleagues and ex pats and applied to Irish Aid, the state agency for help.

“They responded immediately and gave $20,000 (€15,945) to help,” he said.

“Some have been able to go home and the government is building small housing complexes for more, but I’m afraid quite a few will have to spend the winter here. It gets very cold and there is no central heating.”

Reflecting on the tragedy of the conflict, he said: “It’s a nice country. It would remind you of Ireland 30 or more years ago. Everyone is very friendly and helpful and they smoke and drink too much,” he jokes.

Dr McCarthy goes on to reveal his Georgian wife Nina has also been affected by the conflict as her home village is in one of the no-go areas.

Foreign Minister Micheál Martin also visited the families during his tour of the area and promised Irish Aid would continue to help. “We won’t forget you,” he told them.