KEY POINTS:
The graves were shallow, dug in haste. One was in a shed attached to a house, the stench overwhelming the building.
Stones had been left on top to prevent disturbance by animals.
This was the grim evidence, locals insist, of murderous ethnic cleansing which has accompanied the Georgian conflict.
The dead were Georgians trapped in enclaves inside separatist South Ossetia who had become prey to Ossetian paramilitaries trailing behind Russia's forces.
Yesterday, the survivors described their terrible experience for the first time since this sudden war erupted.
"This is where they killed my neighbour Koba," said Zurab Razmadze pointing to a patch of dried blood on the concrete entrance to a house. "He was just looking out to see what was going on when they opened fire and he was hit three times. There was no reason for this, he wasn't doing anything."
Koba Janashvili, 37, had died on the day Russian troops rolled into the district, according to people in the village of Tkiavi, on the South Ossetian side of the border with Georgia. He died in the looting, burnings and killings which came after the troops, attacks that locals blamed on the Ossetians militia men.
"They were angry and they were very drunk," said 51-year-old Radmadze. "They looted the main shop and then started shooting people." There were also bloodstains on a table where Janashvili had been laid while dying. Afterwards, he was buried in the floor of stamped earth in the shed.
Tkiavi has seen the killings of around 30 people, say residents. Nodari Jumberi was shot a few doors away, again the victim of an unprovoked attack. He had been buried in his garden . Neighbour Georgi Alkhasvili said: "He had gone to see if he could find any food. It was a risky thing to do, maybe he shouldn't have gone out, but he had to feed his family. They killed him because he was a Georgian and a young man."
Roza Chikhinadze, recalled the terrifying visits by the militia. "They came in two cars, usually a military jeep at the front and a minibus at the back. It's usually young guys in their early 20s. They behave like they're on a hunting trip."
Many of the houses in the village had been looted and burned. In the square, a shop had been emptied and then torched. Charred boxes and slices of watermelon were littered across the floor. Matiko Elbashidze, 92, had come to Tkiavi seeking a place of safety.
As she sat slumped in a wheelchair drinking water from an old cola bottle, she recalled the four-day walk from her deserted village, Kurta, 20 kilometres away, sleeping in the forest during the night. "She doesn't have friends or relatives here, but we'll find somewhere for her to stay," said a local man.
Yesterday Russia took the first steps towards a troop pullback from Georgia but at the same time paraded blindfolded and bound Georgian prisoners on armoured vehicles and seized four United States Humvees.
The mixed signals came as Nato allies met in emergency session in Belgium and demanded Russia fulfil its promise to withdraw its forces from the small former Soviet republic.
A small Russian column including three tanks, three trucks, five armoured personnel carriers and a rocket-launcher left Gori, the central city that straddles a vital east-west highway. A Russian officer said they were headed for South Ossetia, the disputed province at the heart of the conflict, then home to Russia.
The move towards withdrawal came on the same day as a powerful image of Russia's grip over Georgia: Russian trucks and armoured vehicles carrying about 20 Georgian men, blindfolded, handcuffed and held at gunpoint.
They were taken from the western city of Poti to the nearby, Russian-controlled military base in Senaki, according to Poti's mayor, who said he had been told they would be released today.
Also in Poti, Russian soldiers commandeered four Humvees that had been used in US-Georgian military exercises and were destined to be shipped back to the US.
On the diplomatic front, Nato foreign ministers suspended their formal contacts with Russia. Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said "there can be no business as usual with Russia under present circumstances."
But the Nato allies, bowing to pressure from European nations that depend heavily on Russia for energy, stopped short of more severe penalties.
The Russian Ambassador to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, dismissed the impact of the emergency meeting in Brussels: "The mountain gave birth to a mouse."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Nato was trying to make a victim of Georgia's "criminal regime". Georgia's desire for Nato membership is strongly opposed by Russia.
AID RELIEF FROM THE AIR
* US C-130 planes are bringing in tonnes of supplies
* Three flights are arriving per day, each carrying up to 9000kg of supplies
WHERE HELP IS NEEDED
* Food is the major issue for people west of Tbilisi because only sporadic convoys carrying rations had been able to get through
* Georgian government officials said Russian checkpoints had made it difficult to get supplies into some areas
* The Georgian Government last night started trucking 30,000 ready-to-eat meals and 40,000 humanitarian daily rations to Gori
* 12,000 sets of food rations to be sent to smaller towns in western Georgia
DISPLACED
* 80,000 Georgians have been displaced by the fighting
* 50 per cent of them are in and around Tbilisi.
* 158,000 people in all have been displaced, including those within South Ossetia
- INDEPENDENT, AP
