In the first days of August 2008, the Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili ordered and attack against the separatist region of South Ossetia. As retaliation, the Russian troops took over the regions of Abdkazia and South Ossetia and bombed several locations in Georgian territory.

During the conflict thousands fled their villages and towns, leaving homes, family members and most of what they had behind. Around 25,000 displaced of Georgian ethnicity traveled to Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia, in a desperate attempt to find a safe shelter and wait for the time to return to their homes.

Several local and international NGOs made about 170 city buildings, including schools and warehouses, available for refugees. One of them is the former Headquarters Transcaucasus Military District - also known as ZAKVO, a degraded old building in the outskirts of Tbilisi.

Here more than 1500 people, mostly from the villages around Tskhinvali, live now in poor conditions, depending uniquely on the help from  NGOs and population in general.

This essay intent to show the daily life and living condition of the people now known as the ZAKVO refugees.

People gathering outside the improvised refugee center at the ZAKVO building in the capital city of Georgia, Tbilisi.

A group of displaced people at the main door of the improvised refugee center at the ZAKVO.

Displaced people collecting water in the only taps available.

A displaced family inside the refugee center.

A child posing with a police man hat and pistol.

A group o women and children gathered in the corridors of one of many floors of the ZAKVO.

Irine outside a room at the ZAKVO. Irene fled her village, together with her daughter Lela and granddaughter Maria (photos above), during the conflicts, leaving behind her husband and all her possessions.

A religious figure in one of the walls of the ZAKVO.

A empty room waiting food supplies at the ZAKVO.

A refugee from the South Ossetian region at the ZAKVO.

A displaced of Georgian ethnicity at the refugee center in the ZAKVO.

A group of displaced guarding the sugar stock provided by the UN.

Sugar bags donated by the UN

A birds eye view of a refugee in the patio of the ZAKVO.