Sakasheti

Interview place, time and date:Tbilisi, School No. 155 16.08.08
Respondent:woman,68 years
Story code:0064
On August 6 and 7 of the current year the shootings gained frequency from Tskhinvali, during all day and night. The shootings were followed by tanks and BTRs which raided the village. They destroyed all-civilian houses, kindergartens; they particularly focused cars. The tanks destroyed 17 civilian houses. 21 civilian houses were demolished as the result of shelling.
Women and children tried to escape. Some of them found shelter in kindergarten, others tried to hide in plants as it is difficult to find a place to hide in our village.
From our family my nephews fought in the war. My sister in law (my brother's wife as I am unmarried myself) and I sent the children to Tbilisi. We were hiding in the cellar. We stayed with a sole objective-to gain information about our family members who were fighting in war.
On August 8 they started to bomb the village. In parallel, the tanks and BTRs raided. The village was full of Chechens, Cossacks and Russians. They particularly focused young boys- they were beating them to death; there were even the attempts of rape.
My nephews, who stayed in the village, were intolerably tortured. They put my nephews on the ground, without clothes and they were beating them hard. They even put gun in the mouth one of my nephews and wanted to kill him this way. But then bombs fell nearby and they ran away leaving the boys on the ground. Me and my sister in law watched from the crack of the cellar. They abused all, women too-they even caught elders and took them to unknown direction. If they came across the military uniform in any of the houses they would immediately burn the entire house.
One of my brothers had a 28 years old son with cerebral paralysis (he was adopted from the hospital, of Russian origin by the way). When escaping the parents could not carry him, a wheel-chair bound disabled boy, and left him. They thought they would not harm a disabled. But those impious beat even a disabled; they bound him to the tank and dragged in the streets. The next day the boy was found hardly alive in the end of the village.
When the harvest is new every family has a newly made wine or vodka in our village. This is what they wanted. They would go directly to cellars and would get drunk. In this condition (drunk) they committed atrocities that went beyond the imagination. They also destroyed cemeteries by tanks.
We somehow survived to August 11. On August 11, early in the morning, by walking and crawling we passed 12 klm. and came to the Kareli road. We overstayed there for 24 hours. We had a clear view how bombs were falling in the area.
Three of my brothers and my sister in law could not leave the village as they were unable to walk. Then an ambulance, carrying wounded to Tbilisi, picked us and we arrived in Tbilisi. Few hours later others from our village arrived and informed us that our house was bombed and nothing was left on the place.
It will be a second war for us if we return with no clothes and nowhere to live.