The toll of the war in Georgia's North

But a trip here by reporters, who were accompanying the first humanitarian aid convoy to reach outlying areas, also undermined some of the most incendiary allegations advanced by Georgian officials. Mereti, site of the alleged abductions, is the same village where government officials had recently said three local women were raped and murdered. At least eight residents said Tuesday that no such attacks had occurred.

Georgians living in several of the villages said the Russians occupying their land had treated them well, done nothing to encourage them to leave and offered the only protection available from the South Ossetian militias they feared most.