Tanya Lokshina is Russia Researcher, Human Rights Watch

Recent articles

Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch revisits Tskhinvali following the August attack by Georgian troops to find the locals re-building, and Russian troops digging in

"In our country too many people, forces and agencies would like to get rid of an uncompromising, relentless journalist.” Tanya Lokshina assesses the politics of Anna Politkovskaya’s murder.

(This article was first pubished on 12 October 2006) 

The houses of Georgian villagers in South Ossetia are still burning, their aged inhabitants suffering. The Russian army and emergency services should mobilise to protect them, says Tanya Lokshina in a vivid report. 

With the fighting over, this researcher for Human Rights Watch hitches lifts between checkpoints around South Ossetia's wrecked capital Tskhinvali chronicling the grieving and burying, looting and burning, the unexploded bombs, disenchanted militias and Russian troops struggling to protect what remains of abandoned Georgian villages.

The border of Chechnya and Ingushetia used to mark the line between war and peace. Now the shootings, torture and disappearances have begun.