Manana Mikaberidze is dressed in black, as if in mourning for all that she's just lost. Displaced by the conflict in Georgia, the doctor forces a smile as she leads us into a classroom that she now calls home - and her consultation room.

The blackboard behind her still has writing on it, traces of the last lesson taught before the Tbilisi school ended for the summer holiday. As she gestures for us to sit down, she looks embarrassed and apologises for the state of our surroundings. Her chin and lip begin to quiver and she bursts into tears.

"I just found out that my house has been emptied of all our belongings. My neighbour who is still there said that they looted everything ... they destroyed what they could not take ... I have worked all my life to have this house, it was beautiful ... why would someone do this, what have I done to anyone?"

Manana is both a victim of the short conflict between Georgia and Russia, and an aid worker. She is a doctor working with Oxfam International's partner organisation, the Welfare Foundation, which has health posts in Manana's home region north of the hard-hit city of Gori.

Rather than working from her Georgian village of Dzevera, a few kilometres down the road from Gori and just outside South Ossetia, Manana now holds her surgery in this classroom - treating other people uprooted by the conflict.

For the first five days of the conflict, the most violent, Manana decided to stay to help those in need of her medical expertise. When I comment on her bravery, she shrugs as if this act of courage is nothing. "I am a doctor. I had to assist the wounded - it is my obligation," she says.

Manana's eyes well up again as she bows her head.

"Those five days were terrible ... as a doctor I have seen many awful things but what I saw during the first few days will stay with me forever. Sometimes I cannot even believe what I witnessed."

Manana's son, who is following in the footsteps of his mother and training to be a doctor, also stayed on in Dzevera to attend to the wounded. That is, until she threatened to take her life if he did not escape.

"I did not want him to stay, the situation was too dangerous. He did not want to leave me but I insisted. I did not want to put his life at risk," she tells me.

Under shelling and gunfire, Manana and her colleagues continued to work. When she was the only one left at the hospital, she finally decided to leave. Georgian soldiers helped her to Tbilisi.

"I was relieved to get out but at the same time, I wanted to continue helping those in need of medical attention. This feeling was so strong that the day after arriving in Tbilisi, I decided to return, taking my husband with me. I had to see if there was anyone in need of help and find out the state of the hospital. Retrospectively, I realise that the shock I was in numbed me to the feelings of fear."

Manana tells me that upon arriving back home, she was met with an empty hospital. All the equipment had either been stolen or damaged. The town was empty.

"I finally came across the hospital's gardener. He was not in a good state ... he pointed to some limbs and body parts with shrapnel in them sprawled out on the grass outside and said 'I cannot face this, can you bury them?' So I did."

When a sniper shot skimmed passed Manana, she decided it was time for her and her husband to leave indefinitely.

"The way back was horrible. We went through forests and came across atrocities ... dead bodies left to rot in the sun ... things you would not even imagine seeing in a horror movie ... aircrafts loomed overhead, tanks covered the streets and we heard countless shots," she says.

"I cannot believe that we are alive. Some people are still there ... others stayed in their homes ... one colleague was so petrified of being killed that when her father in-law was killed, rather than bury him outside they brought the corpse down with them into the basement ... living next to him for days."

Manana says she will go home as soon as she is told she can. In the meantime, she will continue to fulfil what she calls her duty in life - helping other people.

The Welfare Foundation is treating displaced people in Tbilisi. It has had to suspend its operations in some of the worst affected areas because of the insecurity.

Oxfam International and its partner NGOs are currently assisting displaced people in Georgia who fled areas of conflict. Oxfam would be prepared to help any civilians affected by the conflict, whether they are in Georgia, South Ossetia, or North Ossetia, if granted safe access to assess the situation and if assistance were needed. Russia has said it is managing relief operations in South and North Ossetia.

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