August 2008. How it has remained in our memory
On the night of August 7, 2008, when heavy shelling began, several people hid in the basement of the house of a resident of the village of Dmenis in the Tskhinval district of South Ossetia, Zaira Khuriyeva.
“Our village has been under constant shelling for probably a month now, and we got used to having to hide in the basement. But there was never such a strong shelling as that night. We were sitting in the basement. And suddenly there was a deafening explosion. Smoke went into the basement. The shell fell very close. Many began to suffocate. We ran out into the street, and there they were shooting. It was terrible. We didn't know what to do. A nurse from a local hospital was sitting with us in the basement. She told us to wet our handkerchiefs or something and breathe like that. After a while, the smoke dissipated," Zaira Khurieva recalls about those terrible events.
In the morning, those in the basement received a call. Said: "Run! The village has already been seized!".
In the morning, those who were in the basement received a call. They said, "Run! The village has already been captured!”
“We, in what we were, rushed to run through the gardens. When we ran to the village administration building, I saw a Georgian submachine gunner walking and firing. Shooting straight at people. By us. They killed our neighbor, Khuriyev Suliko.
He was only 65 years old. There was such shooting that it was not possible to bury him. But we couldn't leave him on the street! There were no men in the village - we buried him ourselves.
Because of this, we were delayed. We were hiding all the time. If the Georgians had seen us, they would have shot us too. Then we decided to run again. Through the forest, then the river, we barely got to Java. I was dragging her on myself. I can’t imagine how I brought her to Java,” said Zaira Khuriyeva.
There, the escaped residents of the village were there until the war was over.
