What Oxfam is Doing
Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes since early August when fighting broke out between Russia and Georgia in and around the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Although the fighting has subsided, many of those it has displaced need food, water, shelter, sanitation supplies, medicine, and other essential goods.
In the days following the displacements, Oxfam and the local groups with which it works distributed about $92,000 worth of food, blankets, and other basic items to people camped in collective centers, such as public schools, around Tbilisi. Oxfam is also distributing hundreds of hygiene kits to families in Tbilsi collective centers.
Oxfam’s local partner, Gyla, has also been helping people from the conflict areas to obtain official registration in order to qualify for humanitarian support. Many of them were unable to take any personal belongings with them when they left their homes. The total number of internally displaced people has now climbed to 150,000. The majority of them have sought shelter in and around Tbilisi.
Oxfam is continuing to assess the needs at the collective centers around Tbilisi, and as the situation in other areas becomes more stable, Oxfam will expand it assessments and aid delivery. Oxfam is seeking $1.35 million through a United Nations flash appeal to help provide medical facilities with medicine, equipment, and training. Clean water and sanitation facilities are also needed for those areas hosting displaced people. And Oxfam is seeking help to repair and improve the water and sanitation systems in villages in South Ossetia damaged by the conflict.
“Our goal is to provide assistance for people who are in need of aid, in as many regions as possible, as quickly as possible,” says Simon Springett, a humanitarian response manager for Oxfam. “Right now, that means expanding our response beyond Tbilisi and into some of the more remote areas where much of the fighting took place.”