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After A 4,000 Km Detour, Ecumenical Delegation To Reach South Osseti

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  • After A 4,000 Km Detour, Ecumenical Delegation To Reach South Osseti

    AFTER A 4,000 KM DETOUR, ECUMENICAL DELEGATION TO REACH SOUTH OSSETIA

    COE (Communiqués de presse
    http://www2.wcc-coe.org/pressreleasesfr.nsf /index/pr-08-76.html
    Sept 5 2008
    Switzerland

    A pastoral delegation sent by the World Council of Churches (WCC) to
    Georgia and Russia has not been able to visit South Ossetia from the
    Georgian side of the ceasefire line. Unable to make the half-hour drive
    to Tskhinvali from within Georgia, they are now traveling thousands
    of kilometers to reach the enclave from the Russian side instead.

    The ecumenical delegation could not get a guarantee of safe passage
    from the authorities inside South Ossetia. The route should by
    now be a corridor for aid, but the humanitarian access stipulated
    by the ceasefire agreement in mid-August is apparently not being
    honored. Armed groups are accused of acts of violence in the area.

    Government and aid officials in Georgia told the WCC group that up
    to 7,000 ethnic Georgians are still living in South Ossetia under
    uncertain conditions. Even the Red Cross has largely been denied
    access, they said, but the Georgian Orthodox Church has limited access
    to a few of them.

    Early in the war, with help from the Russian Orthodox Church, Georgian
    Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II secured permission to visit a bishop and
    a few priests and nuns who have stayed in South Ossetia. Since then
    the church has brought in food and brought out Georgian casualties
    that were still lying unburied several days after the war.

    "We want to express our immense gratitude that you have come in the
    difficult situation Georgia is facing now," the Georgian Patriarch
    told the WCC delegation.

    "Be assured we are with you at this difficult time," said Archbishop
    Nifon of Targoviste, Romania, the delegation head. "We have been
    following the situation in your country with great sorrow," said
    Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the Conference of European
    Churches. "At the same time, we are greatly impressed by your visit
    to South Ossetia and by the public declarations in favor of peace by
    the two patriarchates of Russia and Georgia."

    "Russia is our neighbour and we should have good relations with it,"
    Ilia noted.

    In Georgia the WCC delegation also met Armenian Orthodox and Baptist
    leaders, a member of parliament and a government minister responsible
    for refugees, the country's public defender, member agencies of Action
    by Churches Together (ACT) International and displaced people living
    in camps and schools.

    Humanitarian situation

    About two-thirds of the 150,000 people displaced into Georgia by the
    conflict have now returned to their homes. Most of the nearly 50,000
    still displaced are housed in school buildings. Even as more durable
    solutions become urgent, ACT member agencies and local church aid
    workers told the WCC delegation of many gaps in meeting immediate
    needs.

    "With schools in Georgia scheduled to open in one week, the people
    we met do not know what will happen next," said Rev. Laszlo Lehel,
    director of Hungarian Inter-Church Aid and representing ACT on the
    delegation. Some 26,000 of these people are from South Ossetia,
    with little immediate prospect of returning home.

    Lia Gogitze, a woman from South Ossetia living in a Tbilisi school,
    told the delegation, "We lived so well there with our orchards
    and livestock. It was like a small paradise. Here we share one
    cup." Satellite photos show her village, Kemerti, as one of dozens
    of communities in the enclave heavily damaged by fire in the days
    since the major fighting ceased.

    To visit the enclave the delegation is making a 4,000-kilometer detour
    via Moscow and North Ossetia. When they reach the South Ossetian
    capital, Tskhinvali, they will be just 40 kilometers from where they
    were on their first day in Georgia.

    In South Ossetia the ecumenical visitors will meet with church leaders,
    local officials and the recently displaced residents who have now
    mostly returned from North Ossetia. Also of concern are the ethnic
    Georgian residents still thought to be in the enclave after weeks of
    violence and many reports of looting, arson and forced evictions.

    The trip will end in Moscow with visits to the Russian Orthodox Church
    and the government. In addition to Nifon, de Clermont and Lehel,
    the delegation includes Rev. Elenora Giddings-Ivory and Mr. Jonathan
    Frerichs from the WCC secretariat in Geneva.

    Media contact in Georgia/Russia: +41-79-814-5637

    More information on the visit:
    http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-manag ement/eng/a/article/1722/wcc-delegation-visits-ge. html

    Action by Churches Together response to the conflict:
    http://act-intl.org/appeals/appeals_2008 /UpCaucasus-1-08.html

    --Boundary_(ID_4u6b4x0XY6V1 X+yHE5uq/Q)--
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