23.03.2009 17:44 | Besaeva Nato Tsutsaevna, 72 years old, resident of village Satikar

Besaeva Nato Tsutsaevna, 72 years old, resident of village Satikar:

When Georgians entered the village, we thought they were from the next village Ksuis. They were making a lot of noise. Where could we learn they were those monkeys?! Having entered the village they began to shoot heavily. They were shelling from submachine guns, mortars, from all best weapons. I had been in a basement. Being downcast I sat down. And suddenly one of them jumped inside. The others were behind the house. There was one of my friends among them – I worked in the club of Ksuis village for a long time. The first one put the submachine gun to my forehead, and my friend asked him not to kill me. It said in Russian: “You shouldn’t kill, don`t kill her!” They left my house. Then I ran to my neigbour and said: “Marusya, for God's sake, let’s run!

We rushed to the wood. They began to shoot at our back. We walked in the forest… On hands and knees… We learned that they killed two men from village Dmenis, when rescuing their life they ran to the wood too.

At night we came to village Naniauri. We got into one house. There was an old woman there with us. They came into the house where we had been and put a pistol to her forehead. She said: “Kill me; I am already dead all the same”.

They drove us in a distant corner. Then we have hidden. Then Georgians went away. And we came back home.

I learned that in our village they beat up the old woman, named Jenya Gaboeva, aged 75. She lived at a road. Georgian ran up to her and asked: “Are you Ossetian?”

“Yes, I am Ossetian”

“And why don’t you leave this place? Now we shall kill you”.

“But how will I go? I cannot move”.

They were already going to kill her, but it turned out that there was her friend from the next village among Georgians. He said not to kill her. Then they beat her and dropped her in a cellar. Her house is riddled. Everything inside is turned upside-down.

She spent in a basement four days. When Georgians went away she got out from there. She had been beaten black and blue.

Translated by Tatiana Inozemtseva