In connection with the 34th anniversary of the Ered tragedy, the Embassy of South Ossetia in Russia sent a message to all diplomatic missions accredited in the Russian Federation, as well as to the Georgian Interests Section at the Embassy of Switzerland, dedicated to the criminal act of genocide against the peaceful Ossetian population on March 18, 1991.
The Embassy has reminded that on March 18, 1991, a brutal crime was committed against the Ossetian people by the Georgian government.
“South Ossetia, is remembering with bitterness the sad date in connection with the monstrous tragedy in the history of our people.
On this day, 34 years ago, in the area of the occupied South Ossetian village of Ered, a column of civilians heading to the city of Tskhinval was blocked by the Georgian armed formations intoxicated with the ideology of fascism,” the statement says.
The Embassy emphasized, that the victims of the barbaric action became the unarmed peaceful Ossetians: men, women, and children were subjected to physical violence and abuse.
“The women and children were miraculously rescued from captivity, but twelve men, the youngest of whom was nineteen years old, had their arms and legs broken, their bodies cut, and their fingernails and toenails torn out. The mutilated men were thrown into a pre-dug hole and buried alive,” the document notes.
For two years and six months, the relatives knew nothing about the fate of the missing men. Only in September 1993, after long and painstaking work, the relatives and authorities of South Ossetia learned the burial place and the circumstances of the incident.
The South Ossetian diplomatic mission has also reminded that during the Georgian aggression, many military and civil crimes were committed.
"It is impossible to deny many more facts of absolute cruelty demonstrated by the Georgian bandits. In May 1992, in the vicinity of the village of Zar, on the only road by which one could escape from the war, the Georgian formations shot at the column of cars in which old people, women and children were sitting. 33 people were killed. Another more example of wild cruelty, when .the alive unarmed people, residents of the Ossetian village, were sealed in a wide metal pipe," the message reads.
It is also noted here that this tragedy in a long series of sad events of 1920-21, 1989-92 and 2008 was a black page of unpunished criminal acts and genocide against the Ossetian people by Georgia.
“It is obvious that such misanthropic actions should be met with decisive condemnation by the entire world community. South Ossetia is once again calling for consolidation in the fight against fascism, which, unfortunately, today is finding support, including at the state level,” the Embassy has concluded.
