Image
Image
Zurab and Tamar sit at the dining room table inside their home in the Koda IDP settlement outside Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia. The two were displaced by the 2008 conflict.
Image
Tamar stands in the threshold of the apartment bloc where she lives with her husband, Zurab, bottom left of frame. The couple hid in the basement of their home in the village of Kemereti during the five days of fighting in 2008. "I told Zurab to collect our important documents and bring them into the basement with us." They left with little else; vital documents and a pair of rubber slippers. Tamar and her children fled first. Zurab and a group of other men remained to protect the property from looters. He joined them three days later.People are very strong," explains Tamar. She has a university degree in economics.
Image
Tamar's bedroom in the former barracks where she and other Georgian IDPs were settled after the 2008 conflict. She and her husband Zurab squatted in an empty building for 5 months, from August to December 2008, before they were resettled in Koda. "We had good relationships with the Ossetians," says Tamar, who felt betrayed by the conflict and its aftermath.
Photo: Pete Muller for the ICC #LifeAfterConflict - Stories as told to ICC Outreach @pete_k_muller