After a series of bombings in Sukhumi and Gagra, the Abkhaz de-facto authorities closed the checkpoint on the Inguri bridge yesterday. Unfortunately, my permission entry letter to Abkhazia is dated July 1st. Having come so far, I still tried to cross.
I made it past the Georgian and Russian armed guards only to be stopped by a nervous looking Abkhaz militia with a kalashnikov. A handful of Georgians were grouped near the Abkhaz checkpoint and some are being let through. According to a source inside UNOMIG here in Zugdidi, a border town, another explosion occurred near the bridge this morning close to a Russian peacekeeping post. There were no injuries and the local authorities are currently investigating.
The closed border means Georgian “retournees” in the Gali District in Abkhazia are severed from Zugdidi, a vital trading center and link. Without access to Zugdidi, the Georgian “retournees” cannot sell their produce of nuts and citris fruit. There are anywhere between 45 to 65K Georgians living in the Gali District, a conflict zone that has seen its share of war, terror, and human rights violations. In Zugdidi, there are around 40,000 IDPs still hoping to return one day to Abkhazia. But the current situation is hardly promising.
“IDPs get 15 laris a month,” Captain Davide Caprani, Team Leader and Police Advisor for the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) in Zugdidi told me today. “They try to work but most can't return [to Abkhazia].”
I’ll leave it there. For more information and updates please refer to Civil Georgia.