Two Georgian servicemen were killedand several others wounded in fire exchanges in the country's separatist region of South Ossetia overnight on Monday, two days after a cease-fire agreement went into effect, Russian news agencies reported.

Aleko Kiknadze, commander of Georgian peacekeeping battalion in the conflict zone between Georgia and South Ossetia, accused South Ossetian armed groups of opening fire first, according to Itar-Tass.

"They shot with both usual arms and with the use of the heavy hardware and artillery guns," Kiknadze told a Tbilisi-based television channel.

He said that the Georgian troops had fired back, so there have been casualties on the South Ossetian side.

Interfax said that the two Georgian servicemen were killed in the Georgian village of Eredvi outside Tskhinvali, the main city of South Ossetia.

Konstantin Kochiyev, state advisor to the South Ossetian leader,told Interfax Monday morning that the gunfire and shelling lasted all through the night, violating the cease-fire for the second night in a row.

"In fact, the cease-fire agreement has been practically violated," he was quoted as saying.

South Ossetia has sought to integrate into the neighboring Russia despite Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's pledge to reunite the country by taking the region and another breakaway republic, Abkhazia, back under central control.

The simmering tensions between Tbilisi and South Ossetia erupted in late May when Saakashvili briefly sent troops into the region.

Source: Xinhua