article_snippet: The border crossing where the couple had tried to smuggle the couple in Turkey lies near Sarp - a tiny town on the Black Sea, around 50 miles north of the city of Artvin.
article_snippet: Although Sarp is home to just 212 people, it is one of only three official border crossings along the 170-mile long Turkey-Georgia border.
article_snippet: The Sarp border crossing, in the District of Hopa, Artvin Province, opened in the late 1980s, when Georgia was still part of the Soviet Union.
article_snippet: After independence in 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil unrest and economic crisis for most of the 1990s.
article_snippet: Georgia covers a territory of 26,911 square miles, and Georgia population is almost five million.