False Promises of the Ministry of IDPs from Occupied Territories

Manon Bokuchava, Kvemo Kartli

About 500 IDP families live in Koda village in Tetritskaro district. IDPs from Eredvi, Tskhinvali and Liakhvi Gorge were resettled there in November-December of 2008. Humanrights.ge visited the settlement at the end of November, 2012 and reported about local problems. Ministry of IDPs from Occupied Territories, Refugees and Accommodation promised them to resolve their problems. However, during our second visit we learned the problems were still unresolved.

During our first visit in November, mother of three children Inga Tserediani spoke about problems in the settlement.  “First of all, our problem is roofs of residential houses. Rain leaks into the buildings # 8 and 5. In winter, when snow melts on the roof, the water leaks into the building. Other residential houses also have this problem. There are more than 2 kilometers to school. Besides that, children have to cross motorway in front of the settlement to get to school; there is heavy traffic movement there. We have petitioned to local authority several times on this and other problems but we hear only their promises so far,” said Tserediani.

On the same day we talked with Mamuka Tsotniashvili, Deputy Minister of IDPs from the Occupied Territories, Refugees and Accommodation, about the problems and he said it was very easy to arrange passage for children on the Tbilisi-Marneuli motorway. “I did not have information about these problems so far but I promise you I will start working on them today. I think it will not be difficult to resolve problem of roofs and school-children’s safety,” Tsotniashvili said.

On December 14, humanrights.ge again visited Koda settlement. We wanted to check how the deputy minister had kept his promise. However, we found out that none of the aforementioned problems were resolved there.

Eka Gogiashvili, living on the last floor in the fifth residential building, said water still leaks into her bedroom and kitchen when snow melts on the roof. “Rain mostly leaked into the kitchen and I tried to stop it with different things. The same situation is in the hall where we have beds either. Now, melted snow and rain water leaks everywhere. We met a deputy governor Gogi Patsatsia regarding these and other problems on December 26. He promised to get interested in them,” said Gogiashvili.

Nowadays, IDPs say nobody has come to the settlement from the ministry regarding their problems so far. The roofs have not been repaired yet and children still have to cross motorway to get to school.

See on the same topic: http://humanrights.ge/index.php?a=main&pid=15928&lang=eng