Allen is a Mobile native who moved to the former Soviet nation for a Peace Corps assignment more than two years ago. He had been living in Gori, an area south of the main conflict zone that was bombed by Russian forces. "Many people have been killed there, and the city is in flames," he wrote in an e-mail received Saturday. His wife, Tiko, a native of the Georgia republic, tried to visit Gori to plead with her mother and brother to leave, but a bombing along the road to Gori kept her in Tbilisi, the Georgia capital. "Exactly an hour later - the time she would have been arriving - several Russian warplanes violated Georgian airspace again, and are continuing as I write. Gori was hit by a bomb. No one was hurt in that incident, but the hospital there is filled with wounded from the conflict," Allen wrote. In an e-mail to The Times received Sunday, Allen said he feels safe hiding in Tbilisi. He expressed hope of returning to Gori to take pictures of Saturday's attacks and secure his property.
PCOL Comment: Although the news story states that Lee Allen is a Peace Corps volunteer, the Peace Corps Press Office has informed us that Allen is an RPCV who completed his service in 2007 and stayed on in Georgia on his own.
RPCV Lee Allen flees fierce Georgia fighting
City man fears for kin in war zone
Monday, August 11, 2008
By STEVE CAMPBELL
Times Staff Writer steve.campbell@htimes.com
Brother in Peace Corps flees fierce Georgia fighting
Violence in the Georgia republic has a Huntsville man worried for the safety of his half-brother, a Peace Corps worker who recently fled the volatile region.
Since the fighting began last week in South Ossetia, the separatist Georgian province south of the Russian border, Lee Allen has described the flurry of killings and bombings in e-mails to his brother John Allen, who lives on Monte Sano.
"This morning, I was awakened just after sunrise by the sound of Georgian fighter jets streaking above ... headed towards South Ossetia," Lee Allen wrote Friday in Georgia.
Allen is a Mobile native who moved to the former Soviet nation for a Peace Corps assignment more than two years ago. He had been living in Gori, an area south of the main conflict zone that was bombed by Russian forces.
"Many people have been killed there, and the city is in flames," he wrote in an e-mail received Saturday.
His wife, Tiko, a native of the Georgia republic, tried to visit Gori to plead with her mother and brother to leave, but a bombing along the road to Gori kept her in Tbilisi, the Georgia capital.
"Exactly an hour later - the time she would have been arriving - several Russian warplanes violated Georgian airspace again, and are continuing as I write. Gori was hit by a bomb. No one was hurt in that incident, but the hospital there is filled with wounded from the conflict," Allen wrote.
In an e-mail to The Times received Sunday, Allen said he feels safe hiding in Tbilisi. He expressed hope of returning to Gori to take pictures of Saturday's attacks and secure his property.
John Allen found his brother's e-mails alarming.
"I knew there had been tension on that border for a long time," he said. "I was afraid war would erupt. When it happened, I was very alarmed. I want him out."
Allen said his brother hopes to return to Alabama with his wife. He expressed admiration for Lee's work in Georgia.
"It makes me appreciate the security we have in our own country," he said. "We forget that countries all over the world are very vulnerable to attack and all kinds of deprivations.
"Those are the kinds of countries the Peace Corps sends workers to."
