20 August 2008, 12:10
Authorities of South Ossetia report about 1492 casualties of Georgia's attack
According to updated information of South-Ossetian authorities, the attack of Georgia took away lives of 1492 residents of South Ossetia.
On August 16, Mikhail Mindzaev, Minister of Internal Affairs of South Ossetia, reported that the death toll in South Ossetia is over 2100 persons.
The latest information on the lost residents of the republic was announced by Irina Gagloeva, head of the State Committee for Information and Press of South Ossetia: "It was stated at the sitting of the emergency commission for liquidation of the consequences of the Georgian aggression that 1492 persons had been lost during the Georgia's attack on South Ossetia."
As she said, the figure includes the victims in Tskhinvali and its suburbs, the RIA "Novosti" reports.
Boris Salmaksov, deputy head of the Investigatory Committee at the Russian Prosecutor's Office for the South Federal District has reported today that over 4000 persons were recognized to be victims on the case about murders of Russian citizens in South Ossetia.
"We have interrogated and recognized as victims over 4000 citizens. Additionally, we have interrogated more than 2500 citizens of Russia and South Ossetia as witnesses," Mr Salmaksov has added.
"Inspectors have also fixed facts of vandalism: deliberate destruction and damage of monuments of culture, destruction and desecration of cemeteries and grave monuments," said the representative of the Investigatory Committee. As he said, inspectors had found bodies of Ossetian and Russian citizens and "quite a lot of burial places", which were not opened, but eyewitnesses had been interrogated, the ITAR-TASS reports.
