| GEO World | | 20,000 displaced Georgians return home: UN agency | Updated at: 1625 PST, Friday, October 17, 2008
GENEVA: The U.N. refugee agency says 20,000 Georgians displaced by the war with Russia have returned home since Russian troops pulled out of the so-called buffer zone around the breakaway South Ossetia region.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says people began coming back to their villages after Russia began its withdrawal on Oct. 8.
The agency is warning returnees to beware of mines and other unexploded weapons from the August war that forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes.
Spokesman Ron Redmond said Friday in Geneva that the agency has closed its temporary camp in Gori because all of the town's residents had returned. The agency is building permanent housing for about 5,000 people who cannot go back in the long term. |  |
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