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De-facto Tskhinvali closes so-called border for festive period

By Messenger Staff
Thursday, December 31
Georgia’s de-facto Tskhinvali leadership has decided to close the so-called border for the festive period.

The de-facto administration announced on December 30 that people living on opposite sides of the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) between Georgia’s breakaway Tskhinvali region (South Ossetia) and the rest of Georgia will have no chance of celebrating the upcoming New Year and Christmas holidays together.

All the checkpoints at the ABL will remain closed from 9am on December 31 to 9pm on January 1.

This information was released by the Sputnik Ossetia news agency.

The media outlet stated that the so-called head of the "state security committee”, Eduard Jabiev, announced that the "border” closing while holding a discussion with the so-called President Leonid Tibilov.

Tibilov, for his part, said these strengthened rules were needed during the holidays, as “there were the fighters of so-called radical Islamist Group-Islamist State in Georgia that could be very risky for South Ossetia’s security.

It was not the first time that the de-facto leadership had utilized such measures.

In the course of almost every holiday, the de-facto Tskhinvali leadership and the Russian occupant forces close the path linking Georgia with its breakaway region.