A Georgian police post close to the village of Ganmukhuri on the breakaway Abkhazia’s administrative border came under fire from grenade launchers and machine-guns on Sunday, the Georgian Interior Ministry said.
No one was injured in the attack, which occurred at 03:20am local time, it said.
“Presumably 6 unknown attackers crossed ABL [administrative boundary line] from the Russian occupied territory of Abkhazia and opened a fire towards Georgian police checkpoint near village Ganmukhuri. They used the machine guns and two RPG 7 grenade launchers. The fire lasted nearly 10 minutes. Nobody was injured,” the Interior Ministry said and added that attackers returned back to the breakaway region.
It called on “the Russian occupation authorities to prevent and refrain from conducting armed provocations in the future.”
Sokhumi said it had nothing to do with the shooting in Ganmukhuri. An official in charge of law enforcement agencies in the Gali district of breakaway region, Lavrenti Mikvabia, said that “two explosions and shooting” was heard between 5am and 6am on Sunday. He said that Georgia should look for the attackers on its own territory, Abkhaz news agency, Apsnipress, reported.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday, that the shooting incident had once again confirmed the need for undertaking non-use force pledge by Russia in order to prevent destabilization in the region. It said that Russia should also fully implement August 12, 2008 ceasefire agreement and “start complete de-occupation of the Georgian territory.”