Eight Years Spent Living in Shacks and a Future without Hope

  Eight Years Spent Living in Shacks and a Future without Hope

In the Khelvachauri region, eleven families live in shacks built eight years ago to temporarily replace a cement factory hostel that burnt down. The families thought they would only have to spend several months living in the temporary shacks. Now eight years have passed and the government’s promises to provide them with houses have still not been fulfilled. The victims were only given 150 laris with which to buy essentials.

On 16thof April 2004, 25 thousand laris were allotted for these families (the total budget for the Khelvachauri region was 87 thousand laris, to be accumulated over time). However, since the Rose Revolution in Adjara, this sum has reverted back to the central Adjaran budget.

“Levan Varshalomidze told us to request the money from the person (meaning Aslan Abashidze) who allotted it”, says one of the victims, Avto Bedinadze.

Last August, the families, along with their children, held hunger strikes in front of the Adjaran Administration building. Nine days after beginning their protest, they were encouraged by the Khelvachauri Regional Authority to stop the protest on the promise of assistance. “Suliko Antadze, the Deputy Regional Governor, assured us they would help us in a month’s time. We believed him, though, as usual, we had been misled”.

The anxious families even applied to President Saakashvili by letter. “I handed the letter to the President myself. The only result was Varshalomidze requiring the Kelvachauri Regional Administration to reconsider the case. Nevertheless, still nothing has been done for us”, says Nestan Varshanidze.

“We live on the Khelvachauti highway. We hoped that the President would notice our shacks during his visit and help us, but all he did was wave his hand and smile at us”, recalls Nargiza Kakhidze.

Aleksandre Bejanidze, former finance and ecology minister, assured the families they would be provided with Finnish style houses. However the promises still remain unfulfilled and the families still dwell dejected in their shacks.

114 families in total suffered loss as a result of the fire in Khelvachauri region.
 

Maka Malakmadze from Batumi