Remains of eight people missing in Abkhazia war transferred to Tbilisi
According to the Georgian State Ministry of Reconciliation and Civil Equality, the remains of eight people who went missing during the 1992–1993 armed battles in the Russian-occupied Georgian province of Abkhazia have been identified and returned to their families.
The corpses of those who died in the war were laid to rest in Trinity Cathedral, where a two-day memorial ceremony will be conducted.
Five of the eight identified remains were military members, while the other three were civilians. The funeral with military honours for armed forces members will take held at the Digomi Brothers Cemetery.
"The rest of the citizens will be relocated to other locales, including ancestral graves, at the families' discretion," according to the state agency.
Two coordination mechanisms for the identification of missing people's remains from the Abkhazia conflict and the 2008 August war were developed in 2010. So far, 598 people's remains have been discovered, with 219 of them identified.
More than 2,300 persons are believed to have gone missing as a result of the 1990s armed conflicts and the August 2008 violence.
Through the help of Georgia's State Ministry for Reconciliation and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the remains of 10 victims from the Abkhazia conflict were identified and put to rest in July-August of this year.