On the surface, all looks well in Tbilisi. This is not the face of a country in the midst if conflict, I think to myself after arriving in Georgia's capital city.

But I soon learn that looks can be deceiving. Behind the closed doors of hundreds of kindergartens, schools and abandoned buildings are thousands of people who have fled conflict.

Like other aid agencies, Oxfam is helping people whose lives were turned upside down last week when fighting erupted between Georgia and Russia. Tens of thousands of people living in and around the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have converged on Tbilisi and its outskirts.

The number of registered displaced people is rapidly increasing as more and more requests for assistance pour in. At last count, that number had reached 90,000 and was expected to push well beyond the 100,000 mark. They need food, water, sanitation supplies and other essential items.

Countless more people may need help in the hard-hit Gori district bordering South Ossetia. But access has been difficult.

Assessing the humanitarian situation in South Ossetia itself has also proved hard for aid agencies. Russia says it is assisting the tens of thousands of people displaced within South Ossetia and others who have fled into neighbouring North Ossetia in Russia.

For now, Oxfam is helping the people that it can - those within immediate reach. Olegi Javakhishvili is one of these people. I meet him outside a Tbilisi primary school, home to 145 displaced people. On the door behind him is a notice reading 'No spaces'. He and his family have fled here from his village, 7km away from the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

"I was trying to help injured people from a nearby village when I heard shots and bombing. In an instant, almost everything standing was destroyed," he tells me.

"I rushed to my home in search of my wife and family only to find that it had been completely burnt down ... I thought that they were dead...I ran around in disbelief and was relieved to find them.

"Amidst the chaos, Georgian soldiers asked me the way to Tbilisi, they were apparently lost and wanted to flee too. We ended up getting a lift with them. Now, we find ourselves here."

Olegi is here with his wife, two children and grandchildren. Many of the internally displaced now living here are huddled around a television, trying to soak up information that will let them know if and when it will be safe for them to return home.

Olegi leads me to a classroom, which serves as his current home. School desks have been joined together as a makeshift bed where he and his wife sleep. In the corner, they have neatly arranged the small items that they brought with them among the classroom objects.

In another classroom I meet his wife. She puts her finger to her lips and points to a small child sleeping in the corner - their two-year-old grandchild.

"She is so small, she does not really understand what is happening. Sometimes she asks, 'Grandma when will we go home?' What can I tell her? We do not know. We no longer have a home but we want to go back to our village, although there are no buildings standing any more. They destroyed everything and left people hanging from trees."

But in spite of everything, Mrs Javakhishvili tells me she considers herself lucky. "People have been so warm to us. We are so thankful. But what will happen next? We have nothing - the clothes on our backs and these blankets." The word lucky has all of a sudden been entirely redefined for me.

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