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TBILISI-Leila Inauri laughed grimly at the irony of her situation."The Russians have driven us from our homes and now we end up as refugees here in a building that used to be the base for Russian soldiers serving in the Caucasus. It is an irony of fate," the matronly 48-year-old teacher said.Inauri is one of some 1,500 refugees from Russian-occupied parts Georgia now living in a cavernous, 10-storey building on the edge of the capital Tbilisi which served as a garrison for Soviet troops in communist times.Now, its dusty corridors and rusty stairwells are filled with refugees hugging loaves of bread, carrying sacks of humanitarian aid or trying to cheer up listless children.Outside the decrepit, peeling building, a line of old men sit dazed and despondent, refusing all comment, while women fill plastic bottles with water from makeshift taps nearby.The refugees have tried to recreate some semblance of home in the bare dormitory rooms furnished with fold-up beds and old tables provided by international aid agencies."Things are not so bad here but we all just want to go home, as soon as the Russians leave," said Inauri, who came to Tbilisi a week ago with three of her four children from the central Georgian town of Gori, still occupied by the Russians. Nora Midodashvili, 44, was less optimistic about returning to her village in South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian province at the heart of the conflict between Tbilisi and Moscow.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
