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UNHCR begins aid distribution in western Georgia

News Stories, 20 August 2008

© UNHCR/C.Bruguera
A UNHCR-chartered Boeing 707 carrying 15,000 blankets, 3,000 kitchen sets and 6,000 jerry cans is unloaded in Batumi.

ZUGDIDI, Georgia, August 20 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency on Wednesday began distributing aid to thousands of people in western Georgia for the first time since the recent conflict. The aid was flown in on Tuesday because it was impossible to access the area by road convoy or train.

UNHCR trucks supported the first food distribution by World Food Programme (WFP) to vulnerable people scattered within a 100-kilometre radius of Kutaisi, Georgia's second largest city. Tomorrow, UNHCR will provide non-food items such as jerry cans, kitchen sets and blankets for some 3,000 people.

"UNHCR today chaired a coordination group on tomorrow's aid distribution, which will involve all relevant partners in order to ensure the maximum coverage on the ground," said Alessandra Morelli, head of an emergency team based in the western Georgia town of Zugdidi.

Initial assessments show that about 15,000 people are in urgent need of help, including those displaced earlier this month from the Georgia breakaway region of Abkhazia and internally displaced people from conflicts in the 1990s.

When the armed conflict over the other Georgia breakaway region of South Ossetia broke out on August 8, the area between Abkhazia and Georgia proper was a secondary flashpoint, triggering the flight of thousands of civilians.

They had not received any help until today because of the difficulty of accessing the area with large amounts of humanitarian aid. But on Tuesday, UNHCR flew in 200 tents, 15,000 blankets, 3,000 kitchen sets and 6,000 jerry cans to the town of Batumi. The agency has already distributed aid to tens of thousands of displaced people in the Tbilisi area, including on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, UNHCR has been working with its sister agency, WFP, and international aid agencies to try and identify the needs of the displaced and to differentiate between the old and newly displaced.

Swift delivery of assistance to IDPs in western Georgia will not only have an immediate beneficial impact for people in need but should also help prevent further movement towards Tbilisi, where facilities are strained. UNHCR teams have visited more than 550 collective centres in Tbilisi to assess the locations, numbers and needs of beneficiaries.

By Melita H. Sunjic in Zugdidi, Georgia

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Tens of thousands of civilians are living in precarious conditions, having been driven from their homes by the crisis in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

On the morning of August 12, the first UNHCR-chartered plane carrying emergency aid arrived in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, the first UN assistance to arrive in the country since fighting broke out the previous week. The airlift brought in 34 tonnes of tents, jerry cans, blankets and kitchen sets from UNHCR's central emergency stockpile in Dubai. Items were then loaded onto trucks at the Tbilisi airport for transport and distribution.

A second UNHCR flight landed in Tbilisi on August 14, with a third one expected to arrive the following day. In addition, two UNHCR aid flights are scheduled to leave for Vladikavkaz in the Russian Federation the following week with mattresses, water tanks and other supplies for displaced South Ossetians.

Working with local partners, UNHCR is now providing assistance to the most vulnerable and needy. These include many young children and family members separated from one another. The situation is evolving rapidly and the refugee agency is monitoring the needs of the newly displaced population, which numbered some 115,000 on August 14.

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A four-truck UNHCR convoy carrying 33 tonnes of various aid items, including plastic sheeting, blankets, kitchen sets and jerry cans crossed Wednesday from Rwanda into Goma, the capital of the conflict-hit province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The aid, from regional emergency stockpiles in Tanzania, was scheduled for immediate distribution. The supplies arrived in Goma as the World Food Programme (WFP), with assistance from UNHCR, began distributing food to some 135,000 displaced people in the six camps run by the refugee agency near Goma.

More than 250,000 people have been displaced since the fighting resumed in August in North Kivu. Estimates are that there are now more than 1.3 million displaced people in this province alone.

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