Inal Agrba needs our help! It seemed like a normal April day in 2014, but not for Vitalii Agrba’s family. For Agrba’s family April 22 was a fateful day that they look back on with horror. On that day misfortune befell their younger son … Six-year-old Inal and his older brother Osman were fooling around with needles, and Osman accidentally grazed his little brother’s left eye. The boys decided to conceal the incident from their mother, but within two days the eye was visibly badly reddened and the boys had to tell their mother what had happened and how. Out of her mind with despair, the mother immediately grabbed her son and took him to the Sukhum Eye Hospital, where the child was given the necessary medical aid, but it transpired that the eye was badly inflamed and the retina was damaged. The course of treatment did not help, and the child’s vision deteriorated with each passing day… The doctors at the clinic advised the parents to take him abroad as soon as they could.

Science 2.0 -- Cave beetles are one of the most iconic species found in subterranean habitats. They were historically the first living organisms described by science that are adapted to the conditions of hypogean - subterranean - life.

What happened in Sukhum  last week was wrong at every level. I said this in my statement at the time, and this can be read both on Facebook and on the English-language site of ApsnyPress. It was, thus, encouraging to see diasporan Abkhazians taking the initiative also to call in their on-line petition for respect for constitutional practice.

A big festival for children took place on June 1 at the town stadium in Novy Afon to mark International Children’s Day. Children came with their parents not just from Novy Afon but from Sukhum, Gudauta and other towns.

Caucasus, Autumn 2013

http://www.guillaumepoli.com/abkhazia

A land of palm-trees and eucalyptus, this strip of earth jammed in between the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains was incorporated to Georgia by Stalin in 1931. On august 14, 1992, one month after self-proclaiming its independence, Abkhazia witnessed Georgian President Edouard Shevardnadze’s tanks invade it.