Stephanie’s Piece #4: Part 1 of 3 — Irakli’s Story
Photo Credit: Clare Harbage/NPR
Stephanie Joyce worked with a team at NPR to build a stunning multimedia piece introducing us to three internally displaced people in Georgia. The all-star team included Claire Harbage, Wes Lindamood, Alison Macadam, Hannah Bloch, Ariel Zambelich, Katie Park and Juan Elosua.
One in twenty. That's roughly how many people in Georgia have been internally displaced by war in the past three decades.
When Irakli Salakaia fled Abkhazia, he thought it would be temporary.
He was 16 when war broke out and had just finished high school. Up until that point he had lived a normal, middle class Georgian life — his father managed a meat-processing factory, his mother taught biology. Then, the bombs started falling in Sokhumi, Abkhazia’s capital city, and for more than a year, they kept falling. When Abkhaz forces took control of the city on September 27, 1993, the choice was clear: flee or die.
He has been a displaced person for 24 years — 8 years longer than he lived in the place he calls home. But he hasn’t given up on going back.