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.