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Border between Russia and Abkhazia, Georgian province which proclaimed its independence and is recognized only by Moscow. RFI / Muriel Pomponne

The president of Abkhazia, a small pro-Russian separatist Georgian republic, announced his resignation on Sunday after several days of opposition protests, activists contesting the outcome of the presidential election in September. Abkhazia is a republic of 240,000 inhabitants on the shores of the Black Sea, which seceded from Georgia in September 1993, following a conflict which left 10,000 people dead, and which was not recognized by hardly any state, except Russia after the lightning war which opposed it to Georgia in 2008.

With our correspondent in Tbilisi , Régis Genté

It's a bit of the story of the sprinkler sprinkled. Five years after becoming "president" of Abkhazia, at the end of demonstrations which he had then carried out to overthrow his predecessor Alexander Ankvab, Raul Khajimba had to resign this Sunday evening.

And this after four days of crisis where his opponents violently invaded the seat of the presidency of the tiny Caucasian republic.

Opponents who accuse him of not having been legally re-elected last September, in a context in addition where his main opponent was unable to stand for election after heavy metal poisoning.

Moscow, which has supported the secessionist republic since 1993, dispatched on January 10 nothing less than the deputy secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Rashid Nourgaliev, then, this Sunday, Vladislav Surkov, the very influential adviser of President Putin.

But that did not save Raul Khajimba. And this four months after Vladimir Putin congratulated him on his victory.