9 Reported Dead After Copter Is Shot Down in Georgia

Authorities in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region said that a helicopter was shot down over their territory Monday and that five U.N. military observers and four other people on board were killed.

Vyacheslav Ankvad, deputy defense minister of the region’s self-declared government, said there were no survivors, although investigators had not yet reached the site where the helicopter crashed because of the mountainous terrain.

Alexandra George, a political advisor to the U.N. mission in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, confirmed that the helicopter was shot down but would not comment on whether there were survivors. However, another U.N. representative in Tbilisi, speaking on condition of anonymity, said everyone on board was killed.

The Foreign Ministry of Russia, which has peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia, also confirmed the deaths and said Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov had sent condolences to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Officials did not identify the U.N. workers by name or nationality. A translator and three Ukrainian crew members were also on board, Abkhazian officials said.

Abkhazian separatists drove Georgian forces out of the Black Sea coastal province in western Georgia in a 1992-93 war that left the separatists in control. Attempts to reach a political solution have failed, and Abkhazia has been plagued by clashes, bombings and tension over refugees despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers.

Abkhazian officials say a group of Chechen rebels and ethnic Georgian fighters has moved into the Kodor Gorge region of Abkhazia in recent days.