On 20 June, the people of Ossetia mark a day of mourning – the 106th anniversary of the genocide of the Ossetians perpetrated by the government of Georgia in 1918–1920.
On this day in 1920, thirteen Ossetian communards were shot by Georgian punitive forces. That act of violence became one of the most terrible manifestations of the genocide, for which there can be no justification.
The events of 1920, when the bloody massacre carried out by the Georgian authorities forced tens of thousands of Ossetians to leave their homes, while thousands perished in the snow-covered mountain passes in their attempt to escape, left a deep mark. The victims were children, the elderly and women – all those who belonged to the Ossetian nation. That was not merely violence; it was deliberate extermination, devoid of all humanity. The few who managed to escape death remained forever witnesses to inhuman cruelty, to the loss of their relatives and loved ones, and to the complete devastation and desolation of their native land.
On this day we bow our heads in memory of the tragic events that darkened the history of the Ossetian people and that are not subject to any statute of limitations. Those thirteen lives, cut short on that fateful day, will forever remain in the national memory of the Ossetians as a symbol of an irreparable loss.
Today, Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Akhsar Muratovich Dzhioev, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Atsamaz Valerievich Tskhovrebov and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Irina Zaurbekovna Bigulaeva took part in the ceremony of laying flowers at the Memorial to the Thirteen Ossetian Communards at the Zguder Cemetery.
On 20 June, a nationwide minute of silence will be observed in South Ossetia, and memorial services for the victims of the genocide of the Ossetian people will be held in the churches of the Republic.
19 June 2026