CARE Helps Growing Number of Displaced People in Georgia

CARE is distributing food and non-food items, including hygiene kits, bedding and child care products, to people displaced by the conflict in Georgia. (© Gela Bedianashvili)

TBILISI, Georgia (August 13, 2008) - The number of people in need of emergency assistance in Georgia is growing rapidly. CARE is working with the local government and other aid organizations to provide food, water and sanitation, beds and other non-food items to tens of thousands of people who fled their homes in the midst of conflict.

CARE is concentrating assistance in five areas around the capital city, Tbilisi, as well as in several locations throughout the districts of Borjomi, Akhaltsikhe and eastern parts of Georgia. Already, CARE has distributed food, hygiene supplies, and other non-food items to families, including those with children as young as a one month old.

"We do not yet know the full extent of need, and our assessments continue," said David Gazashvili, CARE's emergency director now in Georgia. "More and more people are seeking a safe place for themselves and their families. CARE calls on all parties to allow humanitarian organizations to reach people in need of assistance," he said.

More than 23,000 people, most from South Ossetia, are already registered in estimated 210 locations where internally displaced persons (IDPs) have fled in Tbilisi and nearby cities. The figure is expected to increase and reach perhaps 100,000.

In conversations with the people being assisted, CARE found most of them grieving deeply for their losses. One 50-year-old from the Tskhinvali region cried as she spoke: "Gas/petrol stations were exploded and we were unable to get any fuel. There was no other way but walk and leave our cars behind. We just fled with the clothes we wore, without bringing anything else with us. We were fleeing through the forest, hearing the jets bombing us. Twice the bombs hit so near, that all of us were covered with dust, unable to see each other. Several of us got injured and two died.

"My 3-year-old granddaughter asks me, 'When will we return home?'. Tell me what to answer? What should we do now that we are driven out of our homes? All our lives and property, created and built all these years, are ruined and devastated."

Media Contacts: