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The Toll of the War in Georgia's North
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The troops' only intervention in the convoy's itinerary was to discourage organizers' from entering the village of Ksuisi, which was razed to the ground early in the conflict, according to several former residents encountered in villages to which they had fled.
As the convoy rumbled to a halt to deliver supplies, villages often appeared completely empty. Then, residents tentatively peered out from behind curtains or garden gates, emerging only when they realized there was no threat.
While many inhabitants of the region have evacuated to Tbilisi and other, unoccupied Georgian cities and towns, most of those left behind were either elderly, infirm or both.
In Tkviavi, Valina Chikhladze, a 70-year-old widow, was operating what she called a makeshift "refugee camp," for those who fled villages farther north. Two days earlier, she had found one of her guests, a frail, 92-year-old woman who seemed unable to speak, stumbling in the road outside her home. Another guest bore an inflamed, golf ball-size bulge on her upper chest that she said was a cancerous tumor.
"They have nowhere else to go," Chikhladze said as she rolled dough for bread loaves on a splintery wooden table. "Other people have worse conditions than we do. Some still haven't buried their bodies or had to burn them in their yard."
While providing aid was the convoy's primary mission, Georgian officials also sought to gauge the extent of the physical damage and the death toll -- eight in Karbi, according to residents, and a handful or fewer in several other villages, in addition to the dozen in Tkviavi -- since they had been unable to visit many places since the fighting began.
While Russian military vehicles cruised up and down the main highway leading between Gori and the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali, the side roads were largely unpatrolled. At one point, when a white, Russian SUV passed by slowly, residents of Tkviavi ran for cover. Locals said such vehicles were often used by South Ossetian militias, blamed for many of the attacks against Georgians.
Georgian officials faulted the Russians for allowing such violence to occur, even if they were not directly responsible.
"The occupying force has the obligation to protect the local population," said Alexander Lomaia, head of Georgia's National Security Council, who helped lead the aid convoy. "It is clear that, at least for awhile, they didn't do that. Was it negligence? Implicit revenge? All I know is too many people died."
