This situation was mirrored in Abkhazia , an autonomous republic in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic , where the Abkhaz separated from Georgia during the war in the early 1990s . The population of Abkhazia was reduced to 216,000 after an ethnic cleansing of Georgians , the single largest ethnic group in the region , a decrease from 525,000 before the war . The upper Kodori Gorge ( in northeast Abkhazia ) remained beyond the unrecognised Abkhaz separatist government 's sway
ethnic cleansing of Georgians
Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia
Russo-Georgian War