To Kaspi, Gori and the Ateni valley...

Finally today, I managed to get on a car with the UN and join them for a humanitarian mission to distribute food, check on internally displaced people (IDPs) and to discuss logistics with local governors.

As I mentioned before, my main focus is on the humanitarian side and to give IDPs a face and hear their story.

Our first stop was a food distribution centre at Kaspi, south of Gori and just before the first Russian checkpoint.






Then we got to Gori itself, which is still firmly under Russian control. You have to pass at least three Russian checkpoints to get there. Incidentally, there was a pro-Gerogian demonstration in front of the first one which went unpunished by the Russians...




I was lucky to be on the UN car, which managed to pass the checkpoints with no problems (the BBC which wanted to join us later was held up at one of the control points and could not enter today).






Entering Gori, you see scorched earth, looted buildings and an almost empty town before you reach the city centre …and some pretty stomach-churning scenes of people desperate for food, desperate about having lost their homes and desperate about the current situation…










Two elderly people who found refuge in an abandonned kindergarden in Gori...




Later in the afternoon we moved on to the Ateni valley (a beautiful valley set in a lovely landscape) where about 8,000 IDPs from Gori found refuge… most of them have found refuge with relatives or simply good-hearted people who provide shelter for them…










Coming back in the evening, I saw no signs of the Russian army leaving, they were still up the hills on both sides of the roads, their tanks firmly entrenched, and soldiers digging new positions… I wonder how they want to fulfil the promise to have withdrawn by tomorrow…