The Georgian and South Ossetian sides exchanged detainees, mostly civilians, on August 28 in a process mediated by the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg.

Eighty five Georgians, who had been held in a Tskhinvali police station, were released in exchange for 13 people the Georgian authorities had detained. On August 24 a prisoner exchange involving 17 people, 13 of them Georgians, took place.

As a result, Hammarberg said late on Wednesday evening, all Georgian detainees held in the Tskhinvali police station were now free.

He, however, said humanitarian concerns in the region remained and “many more tasks have to be tackled.”

“On both sides there is information that many people are either in hiding or in captivity,” Hammarberg added.

Also on August 27, the South Ossetian side handed over to the Georgian authorities the bodies of 43 Georgian soldiers. Two bodies were handed over to the South Ossetian side on the previous day.

MP Givi Targamadze, the Georgian negotiator dealing with the matter, said a few days ago that the most difficult part of the process would be the release of civilians held by individual South Ossetian militias and the search for missing persons.

According to the latest Georgian government data, dated August 25, 216 people were killed on the Georgian side as a result of the conflict: 143 military and 73 civilians. Three journalists, two locals and one Dutch cameraman, were also killed in the conflict.