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SOUTH OSSETIA – RUSSIA SIGNS INTEGRATION DEAL – WOMEN – STRUGGLING FROM YEARS OF ISOLATION, DISPLACEMENT, FEW RESOURCES
SOUTH OSSETIA – More Background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia
South
Ossetia – Russia Signs Integration Deal with South Ossetia
This move
will effectively make South Ossetia Part of Russia, after it broke away from
Georgia in 2008.
By Colin Freeman – The Telegraph UK
19 March
2015 - Russia has extended its control over its southern
“backyard” by signing a treaty with South Ossetia, the chunk of pro-Kremlin territory that broke away from Georgia in 2008.
Two Old South Ossetia Women
South Ossetia refugees in a camp in Alagir,
North Ossetia
The South
Ossetia tiny enclave, which has a population of just 50,000 and is roughly size
of Kent, has existed in diplomatic limbo ever since Russian forces occupied it
during Moscow’s brief with Georgia six years ago.
Now, in a
move denounced as “provocative” by the West, the Kremlin has signed a new
treaty that will all but incorporate South Ossetia into the Russian motherland.
A similar treaty was signed last year with nearby Abkhazia, on the Black Sea.
It also broke away from Georgia during the 2008 war, during which hundreds were
killed and around 200,000 people forced from their homes.
The South
Ossetia treaty was signed on the first anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea
from Ukraine, a move that many argue the war in Georgia was a precursor for.
It came
as Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, urged fellow EU leaders not to ease
off on sanctions against Moscow until a Ukraine ceasefire deal was fully
working.