Georgia ceasefire fails to tempt refugees home

"It is impossible to go back there. My home that I built myself does not exist now," Ushangi Khachapuridze, 70, a pensioner from the village of Kurda north of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.

"Even if the war stops, the atrocities and the Russians will stay there. They only call themselves peacekeepers but in reality they are aggressors," said Khachapuridze, who walked all the way to Tbilisi to escape the bombing.

"I did not want to leave my village at all. I traveled 90 kilometers (55 miles) by foot, sleeping rough with my wife, son and grandson. It is terrifying to see what was happening there."

Elsewhere in the former military hospital turned refugee camp sits Valentina Basiashvili, 64, a former school teacher who also speaks with distrust of the Russian soldiers who were mandated to keep order in South Ossetia.

Georgia sent troops into South Ossetia last week, provoking a furious response from Russian forces who poured troops into the region and beyond into Georgia and carried out devastating bombing raids.

"If there was a guarantee that the land is ours I would go back on foot, even at night. But if the peacekeepers stay there I am afraid for the life of my grandchildren."

"How is it possible to escape bombs? Bombs do not spare neither old nor young," she cried.

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 100,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.

UNHCR has cited Georgian statistics as saying that several thousand people have fled south from South Ossetia into Georgia proper, while 56,000 people from the Gori region have also been displaced to the southwest.

A ceasefire agreed after shuttle diplomacy by French President Nicolas Sarkozy late Tuesday raised hopes of an immediate end to the conflict and a swift return for the refugees.

But Russian tanks were Wednesday still patrolling in the city of Gori, 85 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of the capital, amid accusations their troops were involved in looting and shooting.

Earlier on Wednesday in Gori, AFP reporters saw residents clawing away at the rubble of their homes to salvage what possessions they had left. But the upsurge of tensions later in the day sent them hurrying back to Tbilisi.

For many of those from the region who do not share the separatist aspirations of the breakaway republics Ossetian leaders, it is not possible to consider returning home.

Aza Dudaeva, a 30-year-old ethnic Ossetian who has a Georgian husband, fled to Tbilisi using a combination of walking and taxis to another camp in a kindergarten, where windows are broken and there is no running water.

"I will only go home if there is no war and if the land is Georgian. I will only go back in that case. I want to live with Georgians, I do not want to live with Ossetians," she said.

Alma Dzhoeva still does not know if her mother and father, left behind in the village of Iredvi, are still alive.

"I will go back home of course if there is a chance of that. But how can I do that?" she asked, before breaking down in tears.

Tali Kavkaria, 45, owned a small shop in the Gori region that was destroyed by bombs along with her house. She then walked all the way to the Georgian capital to flee the violence.

"Neither Russians or Georgians are guilty -- it is only politics. I want to go back home but I am afraid to do this now. It is impossible to leave here in such difficult conditions," she said.