Seventeen Ukrainian citizens, who had been staying for more than a year in the basement of the Georgian "Daryali" checkpoint on the Russian border, were evacuated on August 13 due to the threat of a natural disaster. Following the evacuation, they were not taken away from the border crossing area entirely; instead, they were placed in a truck and transported a few hundred meters to the grounds of a nearby monastery.
According to lawyer Daria Samodurova, checkpoint staff confirmed that the Ukrainians would be returned once the alert was lifted.
"An evacuation has been declared at Daryali. My clients—17 Ukrainian citizens—have been evacuated from the damp basement. Police officers say they will be returned to the damp basement as soon as the alert is called off," she wrote on Facebook.
One of the Ukrainians filmed the scene from inside the truck.
"So, we’ve been evacuated. We are now on Georgian territory, at the monastery grounds. They’re keeping us in a truck—all 17 of us," he says.
The "Verkhny Lars – Daryali" checkpoint was closed on August 13 after sensors in the natural disaster early-warning system in the Devdoraki River gorge were triggered. Georgian authorities withdrew police, customs, and private company staff from the site and halted traffic.
The Ukrainians ended up at the checkpoint following their deportation from Russia. Georgia had previously denied them international protection, citing a counter-intelligence assessment that deemed them a threat to national security. That decision is currently being appealed.
Samodurova states that she has been trying to obtain permission to meet with her clients for two months, but the Georgian Interior Ministry has not responded to her written requests. According to her, the issue of the court accepting the lawsuit filed against the ministry also remains unresolved. As a result of the current evacuation, 17 people have—for the first time in a long while—found themselves effectively outside the border crossing area, on the Georgian side. It is not yet known what will happen to them once the alert is lifted.
