South Ossetian authorities unilaterally open border with Georgia for 3 days, over 200 Georgian citizens leave country
TSKHINVAL. Feb 20 (Interfax) - The border between South Ossetia and Georgia has been unilaterally opened until February 22 following a decision of the South Ossetian Security Council, Valerian Alikhanty, the acting head of the South Ossetian State Security Committee's Border Guard Service, told Interfax.
The checkpoints will be opened unilaterally until 8 p.m. on Friday, and the border is to be closed again after that, he said.
"The crossing from Georgia to South Ossetia is prohibited," Alikhanty said.
The border was closed by a decision of the South Ossetian Security Council of January 11 due to a "swine flu" outbreak and its fatalities in Georgia.
According to Alikhanty, over 200 Georgian citizens, who stayed in the border area after New Year holidays and failed to return home on time, left South Ossetia.
"Those are about 200 people, who appealed to the administration head, in the Leningor district and 16 people in the border village of Sinagur, Dzau district. These citizens were vaccinated, all of them passed the incubation period of two weeks and entered the territory of Georgia via the checkpoints of Razdakhan, Karzman, and Sinagur today," he said.