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Gali District is one of the districts of Abkhazia. Its capital is Gali, the town by the same name. The district is smaller than the eponymous one in the de jure subdivision of Georgia, as some of its former territory is now part of Tkvarcheli District, formed by de facto Abkhaz authorities in 1995.
Gali District was populated almost entirely by Mingrelians, a Georgian regional subdivision, in the pre-war Abkhazia. The majority of Georgians fled the district following the inter-ethnic clashes in 1993–1994 and again in 1998. From 40,000 to 60,000 refugees have returned to Gali District since 1998, including persons commuting daily across the ceasefire line and those migrating seasonally in accordance with agricultural cycles. Gali District is now the only district of Abkhazia with ethnic Georgians constituting clear majority.
The population of the district was 29,287 according to the 2003 census conducted in Abkhazia but that figure is questioned by many international observers; it was estimated at 45 thousand in 2006 although Abkhazian authorities contested this number claiming that at least 65,000 refugees had returned.
Together with the Kodori Valley, Gali District is one of the two real troublespots while the situation is relatively peaceful in the rest of Abkhazia. It was a battlefield of the 1998 escalation of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. (Full article...) (Full article...)