Eredvi Georgia Bombed by Russians

South Ossetia, Tbilisi, Tshinkvali, and Gori Hit by Heavy Artillery

Katsitadze Eteri's village, Eredvi, was bombed during the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia. She told her story to volunteers interviewing Georgians made homeless by the conflict. The following was translated from Georgian by her interviewers.

I left my place of residence when the explosions started in the direction of Tskhinvali. Then the bomb hit our village. It fell right into the yard and destroyed our whole garden and shattered all the windows, though the house remained intact.

We were in the basement of the house at 2 a.m and spent the whole night there. The sounds of explosions started to lessen toward morning, but in the evening some huge explosions took place. Down from our house, on the main road where our troops were located, my daughter and her husband's family home was bombed as well.

All of the houses are destroyed. I saw my husband running toward me; he had gone to our daughter to check if she was safe. He told me that two blocks were totally destroyed and said that the women should leave the village. I am so lost, I do not even know what day it is today.

My husband was telling other women to leave the village as well, but they wouldn’t listen. He forced me to leave anyway. We went down to the lower part of the village, and drove towards Gori with our neighbor’s minibus. The next day we went to Tbilisi.

Everybody from my daughter's family left the village as well. Bombs hit the whole village, the sound was terrible. My ears have calmed only now. None of our people remain in the village any more. Fifteen or 20 minutes after we left for Tbilisi, they bombed Gori. The destruction occurred mainly as a result of bombings from airplanes. Fire came from heavy military technology as well.

The gardens are flattened like an airport ground. We, the villagers, had great hopes for the harvest from those gardens and now everything is wiped out. Here, some space is allocated to us, and we are receiving attention, but we prefer our dilapidated houses. We still want to be there.