Too many forcibly displaced persons in Georgia have not yet arrived in society

As a result of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, which dates back to the 1992-93 war, about 10,000 of the approximately 250,000 Georgians who fled the conflict were accommodated in the sanatoria of Tskaltubo, a spa town in Western Georgia. As they had been living in Abkhazia for several generations, they lost all their property with the expulsion from their homes. This left them at an acute disadvantage when it came to rebuilding their lives; many have to remain living in the sanatoria to this day (cf. Applis 2020). This mainly affects the elderly, who are dependent on social benefits. As Georgia’s economic development had not been stable for decades, the state had hardly been able to offer alternative housing. The circumstances of life in Georgia are highly dependent on chance and tend to be outside individual control. Poverty perpetuates itself down generations. When they arrived in Tskaltubo in 1992, the forcibly displaced people had to use all the resources of this setting: parks once used for recreation by those taking cures became grazing pastures and vegetable gardens; trees were felled, and tables, chairs, flooring and countertops from dining halls and refectories turned into firewood and cooking fuel.

Read the full article via https://emptiness.eu/field-reports/tskaltubo-life-as-a-perpetual-state-of-waiting/