An Uncertain Death Toll In Georgia-Russia War

Manana Rodiashvili, 55, a Georgian from South Ossetia, fled her village and spent five nights hiding in an orchard. (By Tara Bahrampour -- The Washington Post)
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Tariel Sikinchilashvili, a priest, said the Georgian Orthodox Church collected 42 bodies from villages last week and was expecting 40 more. This past week, reporters saw a few bodies rotting in the sun, and in Gori, the smell of corpses wafted from bombed buildings.

In the wake of the fighting, a few facts have become clear. Tskhinvali was not flattened by the Georgians, though in recent days, an unknown number of Georgian villages in South Ossetia have been burned. Sozar Subari, Georgia's ombudsman, said his office has yet to talk to anyone who was raped. After a public backlash, the Russians seemed to clamp down on the militias, but about 160 forced detentions have been reported in Tskhinvali. A large number of unexploded cluster bombs have been found.

Russian officials adjusted their figures last week to 197 dead -- 133 Ossetians and 64 Russian soldiers. Georgia now says 400 Georgians were killed, half of them in the military -- with 150 to 180 soldiers still unaccounted for.

Some foreign observers and Georgians have wondered if the Georgian toll might be higher, and whether the government may be minimizing it to avoid a public criticism of a war in which Georgia was so badly pummeled.

Such a tactic could backfire, warned Hans Gutbrod, regional director of the Caucasus Research Resource Centers program in Tbilisi. "If it turns out in two weeks that they badly fudged the casualty figures, it breaks the trust. You have to get the bad news out fast."

Georgia's deputy minister of defense, Batu Kutelia, dismissed the idea that there were hidden military casualties but said the numbers are still being tallied.

For now, the process of sorting out the living has begun.

In Tbilisi, more than 500 schools and other public buildings have become refugee centers. While people who fled Gori have now begun to return home, those who left South Ossetia cannot. They have shelter and bread, but nerves are raw, and fights occasionally break out as they sit in the muggy heat.

Many have received no word from those they left behind. In the gymnasium of School No. 161, Nana Jikhashvili, 49, sifted through a mountain of donated clothes. She fled Achabeti, leaving her husband to feed their chickens and rabbits.

"I took my children out," she said, "but I wish they'd told me" that war was coming. Kneading a salmon-colored knit vest between her fingers, she grimaced. "I would have brought my clothes."

She has not been able to contact her husband -- perhaps he has been unable to charge his cellphone, she said.

On Monday, a man who arrived at the refugee center told Jikhashvili her husband was dead. But by now people here have heard a lot of stories, and Jikhashvili said she doesn't believe it.

Correspondent Jonathan Finer in Gori and South Ossetia contributed to this report.