OSCE helicopter evacuates wounded in a car accident in Omalo, Georgia

TBLISI, 22 July 2001 - In an emergency flight, an OSCE helicopter brought 14 people - including six children - from the village of Omalo in Georgia to the country's capital Tbilisi yesterday, on 21 July.

The people had been injured when a Kamaz truck with passengers went off the road, one kilometer south of Omalo. One 13-year old boy died in the accident. Two of the passengers were seriously wounded. The OSCE Mission to Georgia would like to express its most deeply felt condolences to the family, relatives and friends of the boy, who died in this tragic accident.

The accident took place at about 18:40 hours. It was at 19:10 hours, Saturday evening when the first injured were brought to the OSCE monitoring base in Omalo. Among these were two women and seven children, four of them only two years old. OSCE doctors stationed at the base immediately began first aid treatment and a helicopter was requested.

An OSCE helicopter based in Tbilisi departed at 19:50 hours and landed in Omalo at 20:20 hours after a flight at maximum speed. Fifteen minutes later, it headed for Tbilisi with 14 injured people onboard. One OSCE doctor escorted the patients. The OSCE helicopter landed at the Tbilisi airport at 2130 hours. Here, waiting ambulances immediately transported the victims to Tbilisi hospitals.

Since mid-December 1999, international observers of the OSCE Mission to Georgia have been monitoring the border between Georgia and the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation. They are presently deployed in Shatili, Girevi and Omalo.

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For further information please contact Ala Babunashvili, Acting Press Officer, OSCE Mission to Georgia, tel. (+995 32) 98 99 04.