Russian border guards illegally detained a German tourist who accidentally crossed the so-called administrative boundary of occupied Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia.
Local media reports that Russian border authorities handed over the detained tourist to Abkhazian law-enforcerment for further “procedures.”
According to reports, the arrested German citizen said that he was hiking and was not aware of the existence of the so-called border. It was also declared the German crossed the border from Georgia.
The Georgian State Security Service confirmed that a German citizen was illegally held under arrest by Russian-controlled guards in the territory of Abkhazia.
It should be noted that Russia officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries after a military confrontation with Georgia in 2008. Since then, there have been a lot of discussions on the national and international level, and attempts at negotiations; however, none of it worked out well.
Illegal arrests at the Georgian border have been very frequent since the occupation. More than 900 Georgian citizens have been detained along the occupation line in 8 years. For example, three Georgian citizens were kidnapped by Russian-controlled border guards near the boundary line with de facto Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) a month ago.
While Georgian still continues to support all of those illegally captured by pro-Russian soldiers, the fate of the German citizen, along with other illegally arrested people, is unknown.
