An agreement was reached late Sunday to stop the fighting in Georgia where government forces and separatist Abkhazians have been waging war around the Black Sea coast city of Sukhumi.
Announcement of the latest cease-fire carried by the Russian Itar-Tass news agency came from the nearby southern Russian city of Sochi where negotiators representing Georgia, the Abkhazian side and Russia struggled to find common ground to end the internecine warfare.In four days since the last cease-fire exploded, at least 47 people have been killed and 450 wounded, according to health officials in the region.
The Sochi accord called for the warring sides to pull back from Sukhumi, lift blockades of supplies and to resume the aborted mutual military withdrawal from the contested region that was under way when the cease-fire was brought to a suddden end last week.
A nationwide state of emergency was set to go into effect at midnight Sunday.
There was fierce fighting around Sukhumi earlier in the day, and Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze, who vowed to stay at the war front until his forces regained control of the city, pleaded for international help.
Russia immediately answered Shevardnadze's appeal by vowing to cut trade, electricity and arms traffic flowing across Russia's southern border to the breakaway Abkhazian province of Georgia.
Russia negotiated the seven-week-old cease-fire between the Georgian government and separatists, which was broken last week in a surprise Abkhazian attack.