People Were Not Allowed into Akhalgori District without Form N9 Even On Easter Holiday

Unlike previous year, custom-officers deployed at the Russian checkpoint did not allow people without Form N9 to enter the occupied Akhalgori district at the Easter Holiday this year.

According to the ICMM, drivers of the Akhalgori-Tbilisi rout mini-buses were instructed at the Russian checkpoint: do not take passengers without Form N9 from the Didube bus-station to Akhalgori.

So, the drivers requested passengers to produce Form N9 before leaving for Akhalgori. Those, without the document, were refused to travel. Several passengers did not obey the request and took the mini-bus hoping the custom officers will mercy them again if they produce Russian translation of their IDs as it happened last year; however, only people with Ossetian document Form N9 could enter Akhalgori at the Easter holiday.

Registered residents of Akhalgori district receive the document. Consequently, those Akhalgori dwellers, who were officially registered in Tbilisi, Kaspi or Mtskheta, but still have a house or a plot in Akhalgori, could not visit the cemeteries of their close relatives.

Mari Otarashvili, ICMM