24.09.2008 19:40 | The Tragedy of South Ossetia. Testimony of Witnesses: Ataeva Olga Muratovna

Olga Muratovna Ataeva, age 30, Tskhinval, 30 Stalin St.

My brother, Alan Ataev worked as a dentist in the city hospital, and was not a military person. During the artillery bombardment of the city on the eighth of August, he, my sister and my parents were hiding out in the basement of our house close to the center of the city. On the 9^th, during a period when it was relatively calm, he went out to see if anybody needed medical assistance and never came back. The next morning, my mother, despite the heavy shooting, had gone out to search for him.

She found his remains about 300 meters away from our house. He was torn apart into pieces, probably by a direct hit of some heavy weaponry, maybe a tank. She recognized him by his shoes. Together with my sister they gathered what was left of him and buried him a few hours later, still under heavy fire in the city. They weren’t sure if they would survive or not, all that was important to them was to bury what was left of Alan.

24.09.2008 19:30 | The Tragedy of South Ossetia. Testimony of Witnesses: Gabueva Larissa Nugzarovna, 1968

Gabueva Larissa Nugzarovna, born in 1968, 36 Gagloeva St., doctor-pediatrist of children's health centre.

On August 5, the children's health center was no longer working. I came to work, called up the head physician, and he said that we do not work. I asked: “And on Friday?” He said: “We will see, depending on the situation”.People had no fears whatsoever. Before that, we made survey of the children population - 25% of the children remained in the city. We indeed evacuated children, to Rostov, to Vladikavkaz, but mainly because it was a rest for them. There was no particular warning, nobody expected such an attack, indeed Saakashvili has said that there will be no shooting, and our president assured that we have all means to be protected... And all was absolutely quiet, nobody tried to leave nowhere.  In the night of Friday, August 8, at 23.30 this shelling by large-caliber weapons began, I feel shaking again throughout my body. On that day I was on duty in the maternity hospital, and because for that moment there were no lying-in women, we were on duty in-home. In order not to wake up late at night, I decided nevertheless to go to work to be on the safe side.

When the bombardment began, I came back home halfway. We did not even run to the basement, somehow we were not afraid, we thought that it was just another common shelling and it will end soon. We hid in the space between two houses - I, my husband, father-in-law 73 years old and mother-in law 78 years old. We got the children out earlier, but it was not due to the war, there were simply referrals to rehabilitation center “Phoenix”.

We thought that the shelling was about to end, though it felt somewhat unusual - we never had such a bombardment. All the time we heard assurances that South Ossetia can cope with any aggression by its own forces. All city dwellers will tell you this - we were not ready for such a war, and could not even imagine, what such action is possible against a peaceful population. The bombardment went on and on, it became clear that we had to get out of there.

We ran to the house - again not to the basement, but to the ground floor. The entrance to our basement was blocked by a car which stood there, at entrance, and it was impossible to drive out the car under the bullets. We settled on the floor, as we could, and towards morning there was a little lull in the shelling, it many, who ran to visit one's relatives, who went upstairs to their apartments for groceries, blankets and documents. The bombardment was resumed soon after and caught the people completely unprotected. A new  powerful bombardment from “Grad" and rockets began and in front of our eyes the missiles hit the  neighbor's houses, and two houses – of Byazrov Murat and Tedeyev Lerik – caught fire. From a “Grad” missile, a house lighted up and burned in its entirety in 20 minutes. So was burned the house of doctor Tokmayeva Nelli in the second day. Neighbors could not help with anything, because shrapnel was falling down like rain, the bullets whistled, and there was nothing to extinguish the fire with, indeed there was no water in the city all of this time, not even drinking water- so one should not divide the  Georgians into militant and peaceful. The former destroyed us by fire, the latter - tormented the city by thirst, sending all water to their gardens.

24.09.2008 17:46 | “Children were slaughtered before their parents’ eyes”

If somebody says that it not genocide - let him invent the title to what is happening… Another group of refugees has arrived… Grey from the fatigue, dust and horror… It is possible, that sometime in the future our “synchronous” reports  will be not simply stories before the television camera, but a part of the evidence base in the case of  Ossetian genocide…

A pregnant woman with two children shot on the street…

Grandmother with grandson who tried to run away from a tank but could not escape…

Mother and daughter raped and beheaded before the eyes of the head of the family…

Five children slaughtered, again before the eyes of their parents…

We could not process in our heads all we have heard. But, when we processed it none the less, something- excuse for the pathos-has happened to our souls. Soon afterwards when we saw the corpses of Georgian soldiers we felt  NOTHING… In spite of the fact that all these days it was really hot, and the corpses looked and smelled badly“.

24.09.2008 15:35 | TSKHINVAL. August 2008

24.09.2008 15:11 | «Children Were Fired at, as if at the Shooting Range»

The parks of Vladikavkaz, where not long ago every evening crowds of townspeople gathered, were in silence today. At the children's playgrounds kids were not visible. Some of the food stores are closed - owners of the shops are hurriedly sending the entire produce to the pre-frontline zone, in refugee camps. Lines of people formed at the blood donation stations. Citizens are collecting humanitarian aid for victims…

At the border of Vladikavkaz, there are two opposing streams of people.

The clothing of those who escaped the Tskhinval hell smells of char, in their hair – ashes.  They walk, reeling: the elderly treaded down slippers, women with busted knees, teenage girls, suddenly grown up over the days of the war.

Towards the refugees stretches a line of peacekeepers; boys in bright shirts, gray-haired men in camouflage. In their hands - hunting rifles and machine guns. In a few hours, President Medvedev will announce the termination of the peace enforcement - the militia are, naturally, unaware of this.

-- We go to Tskhinval at the call of our heart - tells us sulky Soslan. – Where did we get weapons? – He is surprised at our question. – We opened the storage, remaining since the time of the hostilities in the 90-s.

Volunteer Soslan, who in his peaceful life works in commerce, is headed for Tskhinval second time this week.

-- The authorities of the republic are trying to convince us not to go South, not to interfere with the military trying to establish order - said 42 year old Dzhemsher who was walking along with us. -- But this is our land and we are the defenders. If we do not go - who will respect us? All it took was a cry, and all the men of our street rose for a "clean-up" of Tskhinval.

24.09.2008 15:02 | The Tragedy Of South Ossetia. Eyewitness Accounts: Kochiyeva Valentina Georgievna

Kochiyeva Valentina Georgievna, born in 1953

Chkalov St, 46. Works as an instructor at a Boarding school.

Me and my son, together with our neighbors, 8 people in total, were sitting in the basement of our house. My son- Valiyev Vladislav, a student in Stavropol, was visiting Tskhinval as part of his co-op program. The basement was small, there was no water, electricity or natural gas and no washrooms. The cells phones were out of power and we did not know what is going on around, we could not call our family and friends… We spent time in this fashion until the 10^th, five o’clock in the morning. In the morning, when it was quiet, we stepped out. There were corpses lying on the streets…

There were 8 of us in the car. From Tskhinval until Kusret village, it’s no more then 3 km. During this short stretch of the road, I counted 17 cars-burnt and shot at… When I came here (i.e. Vladikavkaz), I found out that my second son, a student from Zheleznovodsk has left for Tskhinval, as a volunteer.

My neighbors have been murdered: deaf-mute photographer Irakliy Kozayev and his mother. His wife Eka, a Georgian, is now a refugee, she came here as well.

23.09.2008 19:15 | TSKHINVAL. August 2008

20.09.2008 08:47 | CROWDED JEWISH DISTRICT WAS TURNED INTO SITE OF A FIRE

Populous district, named Jewish, which is located in the East of the city, is one of the most injured districts in result of bombardments of the city. All this area was turned into site of a fire, practically it burned in its entirety. Tens of families have no roof over their heads; they have lost their property, which was acquired for many years. Fortunately, during a fire the residents of a district were in a shelter, in a basement of a building of Regional Cooperative Union. But all the same it didn’t get by without victims. Vasily Bazaev, as his neighbors say, was about 63 years old, he died from shrapnel wounds on August, 8, in the afternoon.

Svetlana Nanieva, one of the witnesses of Vasily`s death, tells about the circumstances: “In the evening of August, 7, I went to bed earlier, than usually as I was very tired, because since early morning when the sun even didn’t rise the heavy shelling of Tskhinval began from the side of the Georgian villages Nikozi and Ergnety. In the evening of that day Saakashvili made a speech on Georgian TV, where with his tendency to be hypocritical he was talking about his great love and respect to Ossetian people, he said he wanted the peace and promised not to begin the war.

Certainly, very few people believed him. Everybody was convinced long ago, that there was a discrepancy between his words and actions. But all the same, I hoped and decided to go to bed, to have a rest after the intense day. Soon I was woken by terrible sounds of exploded shells. As all my neighbors, I took cover in a basement of a former building of Regional Cooperative Union. This is the only relatively safe place in our district. The inhabitants of other nearby streets came there to hide. There were so many people in the basement that we had no place to stand. There were little children, mothers with their babies and the pregnant woman among us.

The shelling of the city didn’t stop even for a minute. I don’t know, why Georgians were vexed with our district, but they fired at it with special cruelty. We heard a roar of the shells, which were destroying our houses. It was impossible to go out to the street. Because of the cramped it was very stuffy in a cellar, but it didn’t matter for us, we were only shaking from fear and prayed for rescue.

19.09.2008 11:30 | The Tragedy Of South Ossetia. Eyewitness Accounts: Kozayeva Marina Pavlovna

Kozayeva Marina Pavlovna., born in 1965.

Tskhinval, Gafez St. 6/31 head of the branch of Polygraphic union of South Ossetia.

My 2 sons are fighting together with the other men; they are in the resistance brigade. And we, together with our neighbors, spent most of the time in the basement of our building. It is located at the very end of the city; beyond it-there is Georgia. Altogether there were 10 of us in the basement.

We spent the entire first night of bombardments in the basement, it was impossible to get out; such was the strength of the shooting. In the morning, rumors started to go around, that the Georgians are controlling Znaur region and they also took the villages near the city. We did not believe it. Then suddenly tanks entered the city from the south and rolled along our street. We were very happy, we thought-finally the Russians came… We even ran towards them. Two tanks separated from the column and started to move towards our building, and then we saw Georgian writing on them. Then we immediately turned around and ran back to the basement; meanwhile the tanks circled around our building, stopped and began firing at it. Then they drove on our street towards the posts. One of these 2 tanks was hit by our boys, and another one fell into the irrigation canal. These guys who hit the tank were all around 18 to 24 years old, and they were armed only with automatic rifles, one machine gun and one grenade launcher.

Then things became more silent … During the night from Friday to Saturday someone has told us, that tanks are again in city and have passed through Shanghai (slang name for a neighborhood in the southern district of Tskhinval) … We were told to leave this area, and in the morning, around 5 o’clock, when the situation became calmer, we moved to the northern part of the city. There we hid in a basement till morning of the tenth. The group of our neighbors has left that morning through Tbet, we too thought to leave, but then we were told that it is impossible to go through Tbet. We drove our UAZ (car model)  through Kvernet. . In one place, four people jumped towards us from the bushes, Tskhovrebova Elina with her mother, and a husband with wife. They were driving together, when their car was fired at and hit their 2 year old son who has died on the spot… They asked to take them with us, but there was no more room in our car and we had to leave them there, on a road. I do not know, what happened to them.

19.09.2008 06:08 | The Tragedy of South Ossetia. Testimony of Witnesses: Bikoeva Nellie Ivanovna.

Mamsurov Street, 5 / 21, director of studies of the State Lycee of Arts

From the seventh to the ninth, we sat through in the basement; to count it, it was three and a half days. The basement did not even have water, but the shelling was so severe that we could not go out, go up to a floor and get a bottle of water… Fortunately, there were no babies in the basement, we were all adults, twenty-two year old girls, they all patiently tolerated… But what was happening during these days was not comparable to what happened seventeen years ago. This is something unbelievable… When there is such bombardment that your breath gets taken away, I do not know, maybe the soldiers are accustomed to it, but for civilians, women, elderly, children, it was such horror - seemed that your innards are about to burst. I do not understand how one can bombard the city by using systems "Grad", shells of large caliber - I am not a military person, but I know that some shells - as they are called, cannons or something like that - they are prohibited, so how can you really bombard a peaceful city in such way? !

It’s a horror of sorts, two direct hits on our building, mass shrapnel, there is nothing left in our building, not one glass, walls are blown to bits… Fortunately, no one died in our building.  But those young men who left to fight - who knows? We were still unable to visit the neighbors; we get in touch by phone, to ask each other, how are yours. We still don’t know anything about two of our neighbors, the lonely elderly Tibilovs: Nana Tembolovna and Geras, her husband. Where are they now? They were also in our basement.

The departure was a nightmare… There were no cars at all; there was no organized evacuation. People left as they could, caught acquaintances… In principle, I would not have left. But then, when we were told that Georgians burst through into the city twice… Prior to my departure, they already entered our courtyard, can you imagine, just came on foot, got out of their tanks and thus went around the city. When it got quiet, we heard steps, and one of three young girls who were with us, said: "Our people are here!" and ran out from the shelter, wanted to know what is happening in the city… Fortunately for her, he had just passed  the entrance, when she came out, she had time to see his back and ran back. But if he were to see her, I don’t know what he would have done with her. By this time, we heard the rumor that they go to cellars, throw in grenades, we have heard that they take girls, women as hostages… We were all women; there was only this old man with us, Tibilov Geras. And three young girls - my daughter and also two neighbors. And so, when these rumors have reached us, we ventured, and crammed all young the women in our neighbor Kabulov Valery’s car and got in ourselves, seven people total, and we departed.