05.10.2008 16:44 | Testimony of Witnesses: Bestaeva Marina Nikolaevna, 63 years old, Tbet village

We did not want to believe that some villages of our district are already occupied by the Georgian soldiers. Notwithstanding the fact we lived in a constant anticipation of war, people thought everything would get by with the night shelling again. But when on the night of August, 8, the terrible bombardment began, everybody realized, that the most awful thing has happened. At 4 a.m. the neighbor came and shouted that Georgian tanks have surrounded the neighboring village Khetagurovo and were going to our direction.  We wanted to leave to Vladikavkaz together with my 73-year-old husband, little granddaughters of 4 and 7 years old and my daughter-in-law. We got in the car, but didn`t manage to pass even hundred meters when two rockets have fallen in front of us. We and some other women from Tskhinval took cover in a basement of the two-storey building, where the other people were already hidden. Georgians have already been in village. Probably, when they noticed the movement of people they surrounded the building (it`s situated at the road to Tskhinval) and began to sing the songs, shouted: “guamarjos Sakartvelo “, that means “Long live Georgia”, and shouted us: “Get out!”

Children are crying, we are, the women, are crying. There is a roar in the basement. Then I thought: “It`s the end”. There were civil guardsmen, standing in a passage of a cellar. They had got the submachine-guns only. What could they do contrary to the tanks! Georgians looked in a window and shouted “Get out!” The children have climbed in old boxes. At last, civil guardsmen managed to run out from a door of an entrance in the other hand (not where the Georgian tanks had been). They began to shoot at them, but, apparently, killed nobody. After that Georgians began to shoot from the tank, the shooting from different kinds of the weapon began. The terrible sound of a “Grad” rocket system`s shells was audible. My granddaughter Annushka sometimes lost consciousness for fear. I prayed “God, let me die the first so that not to see death of my children”. Afterwards the Georgian tanks, which had been near the house, went off in the direction of Tskhinval. On the way, near the spring, these tanks have shot two cars with the people inside.

There were the son of my friend Tadtaev Leva in one of them, and else I saw killed woman in the car. The others were wounded and cried for help loudly. There was a woman named Mzia with her daughter. They were bleeding and crawled into a big concrete pipe at a road. I could do nothing for them; I could not leave my children. We have rushed to the other basement and heard there the shouts for help from the different sides. When the shelling became a bit calmer, I ran to see where these people have got to, but there were not wounded people any more. There were only the corpses of Tadtaev and the unfamiliar woman. On August, 9, in the morning we got in our neighbor`s car and went off in the direction of Dzhava.

Except us, his mother, his wife Kozaeva Diana and three children of 6, 4 and 2 years old were the occupants of the car. On the way we went to Galuanta village to fetch cousin Diana. Her brother and father stayed in the village. When we reached Vladikavkaz, we have learned that Georgians completely destroyed Galuanta, killed Diana`s brother. On Zarskaya road we saw many burned cars. I peered at each of them. For 5 days we knew nothing about my son who had been a member of the home guard. My little granddaughters held their crosses and prayed to God all the time we were in this hell. We did not want this war, we did not begin it. People only protected their children and their houses.

Haven’t we really right to live?

Translated by Tatiana Inozemtseva