Situation worsens in South Osetia

Two Georgian policemen were abducted in the village of Eredvi near the capital of South Osetia, Tskhinval, on January 19. Commander of the Georgian peacekeeping battalion Koba Lachkebiani accused the Osetian side of the abduction connecting the crime with the detention of 20-year-old Aleksandr Pukhayev by Georgian law enforcers on the night of January 18-19. Pukhayev was charged with murdering two Georgians in February 2004 and was conveyed to an isolator in Gori, Georgia.

The Caucasian Knot correspondent has also reported that people in the village of Eredvi captured five residents of South Osetia today, two of the abducted men being South Osetian policemen. Right after the abduction, governor of Georgia's Gori district, bordering on South Osetia, claimed that he "demands that the two policemen who disappeared on the night of January 19-20 should be released immediately."

This morning, South Osetian law enforcers blocked the road Tskhinval-Dzhava going along Georgian villages (one of them is Tamarasheni, where Pukhayev was detained). The republican authorities warned residents of South Osetia against visiting Georgia.