When Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's pro-western leader, called a ceasefire in the face of intensifying battles with separatist fighters in South Ossetia on August 7, many in the breakaway enclave heaved a sigh of relief.

"Saakashvili said there would be a ceasefire and we thought it was going to end," said Leyla Bessateva, who fled sniper and rocket fire in Dominis, a south Ossetian village 12km from the capital, Tskhinvali.