Some 240 war refugees are crammed into a former office building and there's no running water, but otherwise things are fine, a Georgian refugee told U.S. officials Thursday at a makeshift shelter.
A top U.S. military official said he hoped to help the Georgians return home as soon as possible.
The head of the U.S. European Command, U.S. Gen. John Craddock, who is also NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, visited the building that is housing hundreds of Georgians displaced since fighting began Aug. 7 over Georgia's separatist province of South Ossetia.
Craddock visited the site with Henrietta Holsman Fore, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is helping oversee delivery of U.S. aid, including bedding, medicine, soap, food and infant formula.
About 80,000 people displaced by the Russian-Georgian fighting are currently housed in more than 600 centers in and around the capital, Tbilisi. In all, the United Nations says 158,000 have been uprooted by the fighting, including thousands who fled to Russia.
Marina Katanadz from the Georgian village of Avnevi - which is located near South Ossetia but inside Georgia proper - told Craddock about the cramped, former office that she was staying in with her 5-year-old-daughter and 3-year-old son.
"We want to get you back to your village as soon as possible," he told her.
Katanadz said she and her children had been at the facility since Aug. 9 after fleeing her village while it was being shelled by Russian forces. Despite the lack of water, she said they were all well.
"This is hope," she said - but she added: "I hope they remember us."
Craddock then met with Georgian officials, and said the U.S. was "committed and we will remain so" to providing aid to Georgia.
The United States has delivered aid to Tbilisi on 20 flights since Aug. 19.
In addition, a U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer loaded with humanitarian aid was heading to Georgia on Thursday through Turkey's straits, the U.S. military said.
It was the first of three U.S. Navy ships that will carry supplies such as blankets, hygiene kits and baby food to Georgia. The Turkish straits, Dardanelles and Bosporus, are the only naval passage possible between the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
The guided destroyer USS McFaul left Souda Bay, Crete, on Wednesday; a coast guard cutter, Dallas, is to leave Souda Bay on Friday, and the command ship USS Mount Whitney is leaving from Gaeta, Italy.
Paul Farley, a spokesman for the Souda Bay U.S. naval base, said all three ships were expected to reach Georgia "within the next week." He did not give their destination.
Source: Agencies
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