THE GRIM ESCAPE

An army of the dispossessed faces cold and hunger after the Abkhazian triumph in Sukhumi

They flee by the thousands -- in horse-drawn carts stacked high with clothes and furniture; on bicycles balancing precarious bundles; on foot, arms laden with any belongings they can carry. Since Abkhazian rebels broke a Russian- mediated cease-fire and drove Georgian forces out of the Black Sea region, seizing its capital, Sukhumi, an estimated 200,000 Georgians are thought to have been uprooted. Some have been trudging for days through the bitter-cold, snow-covered mountains of the Caucasus, headed mainly into cities of western Georgia. In Sukhumi the Abkhazian insurgents are accused of having carried out mass ''ethnic cleansing,'' looting and plundering the...

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