Georgia: Strangers in Their Own Land

Many Georgians displaced by the war in Abkhazia in the early 1990s are still living in hostel accommodation that was meant to be temporary. 

With no prospect of a peace settlement that would allow them to go back home, these internally displaced people (IDPs) are stuck in a kind of limbo.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the end of the conflict. No progress on a peace settlement has been made, and the two sides remain far apart. The Abkhaz administration claims independent status – recognised by Russia since 2008 – while Tbilisi insists that the breakaway entity must come back under central control.

These pictures show life in the Bagebi and Amirani settlements on the outskirts of Tbilisi, a city that is home to an estimated 30,000 IDPs from Abkhazia.

According to the photographer who took these pictures, Mark Rafaelov, “They have been forgotten, they aren't wanted by anyone, they are strangers in their own land.”

The Amirani hotel has been home to IDPs for the last two decades. The housing blocks in Bagebi were originally student hostels. IDPs moved there in 1994. Bagebi is located on the western fringes of the capital, and it is surrounded by building sites abandoned since Soviet times and by fast-expanding cemeteries.

Conditions are poor and the buildings are crumbling. Often an entire family lives in one room, and new generations have grown up knowing no other life. Water has to be brought in buckets as the mains supply was cut off when no one paid the bills.

The displaced people have refugee status, but the benefits they get are limited.

See also Housing Hopes Dim for Georgia's Refugees and this film on IDPs living in Tbilisi, Home from Home.

All photographs by Mark Rafaelov. Born in Baku, Mark is a freelance photographer traveling across the Caucasus, mainly in Georgia and Azerbaijan.