Cechnya/Georgia: More than 3.000 refugees blocked at Chatili, without food and medical assistance.What is commissioner Poul Nielson waiting to intervene?

Rome, 10 December 1999.

More than 3.000 Chechen refugees are currently blocked in the little mountain village of Chatili, in Georgia at the frontier with Chechnya. Other thousands of refugees are expected in the next days. The authorities of this village of few hundreds inhabitants are evidently in the impossibility to ensure food and medical assistance to refugees and the injured soldiers. The comunications with the Georgian capital Tbilisi are particularly difficoult: 5-6 hours with a jeep on mountain streets with snow.

Declaration of Olivier Dupuis, radical deputy of the "Lista Bonino":

"Attending for a policy deign of this name for the whole Transcaucasia, a policy that the Union, as we questioned more times, should have been put in practice sagely during the last years, the commision has the duty to take with extreme urgence humanitarian initiatives capable to tackle with the catastrophee in course. Moreover, in the case of the Georgian village of Chatili, there is no reason or political impediment that can justify, even only partially, a whatever inaction from side of the commisssion. What is Commissioner Poul Nielson waiting for?"