09.05.2009 20:15 | The victims of Georgian aggression: Kachmazova Diana Grigorievna and Kachmazova Zaira Grigorievna

Alan Sipols, 38 years old, London resident, tells:

Kachmazova Diana Grigorievna (my mother) and Kachmazova Zaira Grigorievna (my aunt) lived in Tskhinval, at Dzhioev Pr., 7. Zaira worked as a neuropathologist. This profession was in great demand in Tskhinval after the events of the Nineties. A lot of people, who went through the horrors of war, wanted for the qualified medical aid.

Actually, one of the most common reasons my relatives, rather old people, stayed in Tskhinval during the years of the “first war”, notwithstanding the bad living conditions and depressing mood in a conflict zone, was because of responsibility for sick and disabled people.

In the beginning of August, 2008 when the tension was growing, several people were killed by sniper’s bombardments from the direction of Georgia. I insisted on my mum and aunt should leave to Russia for a while, but they hoped, that it would not be the war and stayed in Tskhinval.

In the afternoon of August, 7 the situation in the city was extremely critical. I regularly got in touch with my relatives by phone. My aunt used to get her workplace crouching alongside the walls, because the streets could be shot by the Georgian snipers from the heights. However, in the evening Saakashvili made a statement that he declared cease fire and my relatives went to bed. The people of  South Ossetia hoped that the next day – the day of the Olympic Games opening, the negotiations would begin and it would no be the war.

At around midnight my mum and aunt woke up from the roar of explosions and went down to the rather safe ground floor (there is no underground cellar in our house). The night on the 8th of August elapsed with the weapon’s roar and the splinters landed at the upper floor of our house, all windows were smashed.

In the morning of August, 8 Georgian tanks entered the city, several of them drove along Dzhioev Pr. One tank stopped at our house and started to ram the adjacent stone fence and then it shot the garage doors from a machine gun.

It is difficult to imagine the things my mother and aunt went through. They didn’t even have an opportunity to look out on account of the constant shooting. My mother prayed all the time. Russia declared the military help, but we didn’t see any help in Tskhinval. Ossetian defense was overwhelmed, Georgian army committed acts of violence in the streets.

In the evening of August, 8 Georgians started the shelling of Tskhinval with heavy weaponry again. The nearby house, situated at a crossroads of

and

was completely destroyed. My mother and aunt were still on the ground floor of the house, moving from one room to another, according side the roar came from.

In the morning of 9-th, during a small break in bombardment, my mother and aunt managed to came upstairs to see what was on the second floor. Soon the shooting started again and they had to return downwards.

In the afternoon of August, 9, sometime between13.00 and 16.00, during another heavy shelling of the city, a shell landed in our garden on the western side of the house. It exploded sending a huge amount of small sharp pieces flying. A part of the garden had burnt down and a crater (3.5 m over and 70 cm deep) formed in the ground. The fragmentation shell, possibly, flew from the direction of Nikozi. It was a directed explosion (approximately from southwest to northeast).

Lots of hot pieces of shrapnel (with burnt edges) with high speed flew towards the house, mostly at the ground floor level, penetrating metal walls as cardboard. My mother and aunt stood in these splinters` way… I can’t describe what has remained from them, Heaven forbid that you should see things like that!

The bodies were severely damaged and not all the pieces were immediately located and we had to bury part of the remains later after the funeral.

We couldn’t bury my mother and aunt next to their parents in village Tbet cemetery like we planned once. The shells which fell down near that village blew to atoms the grave of my grandmother and grandfather.
Translated by Tatiana