Situation nowhere

All is not calm in South Ossetia:

Only recently a man was kidnapped on Georgia's main east-west highway while on his way to referee a football match. A ransom demand for $50,000 followed, but he was freed after two days by the South Ossetian police.

In that case financial gain was clearly the motive. But Khatuna Tsintsadze, from a Georgian human rights group called Century 21, says a common motive is also political.

"The people who kidnap them want them to be afraid of returning to the area," she says.