Georgians live in fear in Russian "security zone"

By Matt Robinson and Margarita Antidze

TKVIAVI, Georgia (Reuters) - Koba Jashashvili's corpse has been lying for three weeks in his cellar because, his neighbors say, his family are too scared of roaming militias to return and give him a proper burial.

Jashashvili's cottage, with its red roses in the driveway, lies within a Moscow-designated "security zone" deep inside Georgia where the Kremlin has told the West its peacekeepers need to remain to keep order and prevent violence.

But residents and rights groups say irregulars from separatist South Ossetia and southern Russia, under the noses of the Russian peacekeeping troops, are looting, killing and burning in Georgian villages inside the zone.

Fear of the violence is keeping thousands of displaced Georgians from returning to villages like Tkviavi, forcing many to live with relatives or in refugee camps, kindergartens and old factories.

Eka Nozadze lives with 1,300 displaced Georgians in a tent city behind the football stadium in Gori, the first Georgian town outside the Russian "security zone."

Nozadze's husband and brother-in-law were killed minutes after they told the women and children to flee from the village of Karbi, just north of Tkviavi. The family returned to cover the corpses, but had no time to dig graves.

"I wake up every single morning with the hope that I will bury my family members," said 37-year-old Nozadze her head wrapped in a black scarf in a sign of mourning.

Tbilisi and rights groups have alleged for weeks that ethnic Georgians inside South Ossetia have been attacked, a charge the separatists deny.