Date, location: 15 August 2008. Tbilisi, Georgia
Production: Jon Bjorgvinsson, Jessica Barry, Jan Powell,
Sound: Georgian
Copyrights: ICRC – Access All
length:3 mins

For broadcast tapes and information on footage: Jan Powell, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva,

(Distributed via EBU news feed, 15.08.08)


Some have managed to stay with friends and relations but many come to Collective Centres run by the Georgian authorities with help from volunteers.

Some fled into the forest and have walked miles, or hitch-hiked into the city. They have abandoned their homes and belongings and arrive with the clothes they stand up in. Some are worried about family members left behind, or that their homes might be looted.

There are many children in the centres, which are very poorly equipped. The shelters are already home to old people who fled the fighting in Abkhazia in the early 1990s and have nowhere else to live.

ICRC flights are bringing relief aid into the Tblisi from depots in Amman, Jordan. Around 100 tonnes of supplies, including water treatment equipment, medicines, medical supplies, food, blankets, tarpaulins, buckets, jerrycans and hygiene items have been flown to Tbilisi.

At Tbilisi airport, a field hospital provided by the Norwegian Red Cross is unloaded in the early hours of this morning. The hospital has its own team of doctors and nurses. It can be operational within 24 hours with beds, an operating theatre, its own water and sanitation system. The hospital and surgical team will be deployed as soon as access for humanitarian assistance opens up.

Shot list
TBILISI
00:00 Tbilisi streets – man reading newspaper – ICRC offloads goods from landcruisers.
00:24ICRC aid worker organises unloading of material
00:28 Crowds of families waiting for goods
00:39 Corridor of Collective Centre – woman sleeping
00:53 woman called Tsiuri and son walk upstairs. She fled fighting in South Ossetia
0111 Wideshot Tsiuri
01:16 Soundbite Tsiuri

"It was horrible shooting. We were under a horrible rain of bullets. Four enemy planes were bombarding us. It was probably god who saved us. My yard is paved. 5 Metres away is a garden, I saw 2 black tubes in the ground. These are bombs. We were lucky they did not hit my yard or we would not have survived. God saved us probably."

01:49 Woman and husband, Lali and Paarta , walk into new room in centre.
01:57 Soundbite Lali

" We are occupying this room but at the moment we cannot live in it. We don’t even have a bed as you can see. I have 2 children who I had to send to a relative's house. I cant bring them here because they cannot sleep on chairs. We ourselves are hosted by friends of my husband who themselves have been displaced for 18 years. They didn't have much for themselves but they showed respect and compassion for us. He and his wife sleep on the floor and let us sleep in their bed as a sign of respect to us."

02:28 Misha, 77 years old, helps give out aid goods
02:42 Soundbite Misha, displaced. Replies to question what is he planning to do.

"How do I know? They (other people in the shelter) are from Abkhazia. They thought the same, and they have been here for 18 years. Who knows when it is going to end?"

02:47 TBILISI AIRPORT 2.00am.
Norwegian Red Cross field hospital is offloaded from plane
02:56 ENDS