05.04.2009 00:34 | The victims of Georgian aggression: 3-year-old Dina Elbakieva and Angelina Harazishvili

Hundreds of peaceful citizens died in result of heavy firing attack on sleeping Tskhinval, started by Georgian army at night from the 7th to the 8th of August.

The lives of many families were ruined. Vyacheslav Elbakiev`s life turned out to be fate, he suddenly lost his beloved wife Angelina (she was 34 years old) and 3-year-old daughter Dina.

Vyacheslav Elbakiev and Angelina Harazishvili loved each other very much, but the circumstances were such that after many years of their marriage they did not have children. They wanted to have a child very much and adopted Dina as a daughter when she was a child of tender years. They took the baby from a maternity hospital, where the birth motherleft her.

As Angelina`s friends Inara Gigolaeva and Emma Parastaeva says, the spouses adored Dina, always presented her with different gifts. “Not any parents love their children as Slavik and Angelina loved their adopted daughter. Dina brightened up their life, added warmth and joy”, - the friends told. The relatives of Vyacheslav and Angelina loved little Dina very much too.

Vyacheslav works in Ossetian peacemaking battalion. Angelina was a businesswoman. They rented a private house on Hariton Pliev Street

, where they had moved in a few days before that tragic night. Heretofore they rented the house on Bush alley (the alley is named in honour of the well-known biologist), where they made friends with the families of Inara and Emma. “Since the early morning of August, 7 the tensions were growing. Tskhinval and a number of villages of our republic draw fire from Georgia.

That day Angelina and her child were in our place till the evening, - Inara Gigolaeva retells – Slavik was on the post in village Sarabuk. Angelina worried about him very much. We asked her to stay overnight because there was alarm condition in the republic. But she didn’t listen to us, she said they were going to spend the night in the house of her sister, who lived not far away from here. It was about 9 o'clock in the evening when she together with her daughter left our house”.

But Angelins didn’t go to her sister, she decided to stay with Dina at home. Her nearest neighbor Melchik Besaeva invited them to her house too. “I said that in case of the beginning of  the bombardments, she could come to us together with the child and take cover in our basement. They had their own basement too, but her husband was absent and it would have been calmer for her to stay with us, but she hadn’t come”, - the neigbour said.

When Georgians intentionally waited for the night and opened heavy fire at the uptown of Tskhinval, Angelina and her daughter already went to bed.

Melchik Besaeva says: “After the first shots a big explosion occurred in our district. We hardly managed to go barefoot down in a basement, when the second explosion was near by us. It was so big that our house was shaking. The shell hit Elbakiev`s house. We didn’t understand which house was hit. We realized it later. Because of the endless bombardment it was impossible to look out even for a minute, to crown at all the electricity supply was cut off, we could see nothing in the darkness.

At five o'clock in the morning my husband Jury together with the neighbour went to check up Angelina and her daughter. We hoped they were alive, we thought they probably managed to take cover in a basement. Having entered the destroyed house they saw awful picture: Angelina and Dina were lying dead under the ruins. Angelina`s head and upperparts were visible only.

When they pulled them out, they saw missile wounds on their bodies.

Having learned about their dreadful death, we had been shocked. Angelina was a kind woman, person of ready sympathy. All the neighbours loved charming little Dina. It was very tight-knit and cheerful family. It hurts to see Vyacheslav suffers. He is all in a twit. We worry about him too”, - Emma, Inara and other neighbors are sorry about Angelina`s and Dina`s dead.

“Dina and my daughter were of the same age, used to play together, - Inara continues. - Now she asks me all the time: “Where is Dina? When will she come?” Having heard from someone, that Dina is no more, she came crying up to me and asked: “Mum, is it truth that Dina died?” I began to soothe her, said that it wasn’t true and Dina was at her grandmother”.

Angelina and her daughter were buried in a cemetery of Tbet village.

Translated by Tatiana Inozemtseva