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DATE=12/17/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=UNHCR / CHECHNYA (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-257247
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO:  The United Nations Refugee Agency, U-N-H-
C-R, says the number of Chechens fleeing into the 
neighboring country of Georgia is increasing.  
Lisa Schlein in Geneva reports the agency says an 
estimated five-thousand Chechen refugees have 
escaped into Georgia over difficult mountain 
terrain.
TEXT: The United Nations Refugee Agency says the 
flight into Georgia may be the shortest escape 
route from Chechnya for some refugees.  But it is 
not the easiest.  The agency says the refugees 
have been traversing steep, dangerous mountain 
roads and ending up in remote inaccessible 
Georgian villages.
U-N-H-C-R Spokesman Kris Janowski says since last 
Friday, the United Nations has evacuated 12-
hundred Chechen refugees from a remote mountain 
village of Shatili on the southern slopes of the 
Caucasus. 
            /// JANOWSKI ACT ///
      These people fled from Chechnya and were 
      stuck in a village, which is not accessible 
      from Georgia by road.  So, we evacuated 
      them with the help of Georgian border 
      guards in helicopters. Altogether 12-
      hundred people have been flown to Eastern 
      Georgia to the Pankisi Valley. 
            ///END ACT///
Mr. Janowski says the 12-hundred Chechens join 
38-hundred other refugees who previously arrived 
in Georgia.  He says this latest flow of refugees 
into Georgia was a fairly limited movement. 
But if more people come across the border, the 
United Nations may resume the airlift.  The U-N-
H-C-R spokesman says most of the people who 
arrived were exhausted and frightened women and 
children.  But he says the group also included 50 
unarmed men with war wounds.  He says the men 
were flown to the Georgian capital, Tblisi, for 
treatment.  
            /// 2nd JANOWSKI ACT ///
      The people who arrived were unarmed.  But, 
      there may be rebel fighters among them. 
      Georgia made a point of taking these people 
      away from the border into an area which is 
      further away from the border. 
            ///END ACT///
Experts agree that Georgia does  not  want to 
become a staging point for Chechen rebel attacks 
against the Russian military.  Mr. Janowski says 
Chechen refugees are living with local families 
or in public buildings.  He says Chechen refugees 
are still fleeing to the neighboring Russian 
Republic of Ingushetia, but at a lower rate.  
Nearly 250-thousand Chechens have sought refuge 
in Ingushetia since Russia began its military 
offensive in Chechnya at the end of September.
(Signed)
NEB/LS/GE/KL 
17-Dec-1999 08:35 AM EDT (17-Dec-1999 1335 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.