I think the Georgian fascist fervour was behind the drive of Abkhazian for independence.I was told the other side of the story by several Abkhazians, they said they were deprived of jobs, housing and oppressed by the Georgians in their capital Sukhumi. I am saying their capital because Abkhazia was a state before the USSR, they joined and were promised independence in case USSR got dissolved, yet Georgian Stalin obstructed that and got rid of all Abkhazian nationalists in his circle (source in the youtube this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYGyyuxRPws.

Nothing justifies ethnic cleansing and mass murder. Abkhazia was not a state before USSR. They were not in a position to bargain with anyone about joining the Soviet Russia (USSR was created later). They were forcibly annexed like all other parts of the former Russian Empire whom the Bolsheviks managed to capture in a civil war.

Can we get sources on that figure of 20-30k killed please?

I know of several ethnic Abkhazians from Jordan and Syria who volunteered and fought against the Georgian army which was threatening to conduct total ethnic cleansing of Abkhazians. "August 25, 1992: The commander of the Georgian army, Gia Karkarashvili, stated on TV that he would sacrifice 100,000 Georgians to kill all 97,000 Abkhazians, if that is what it took to keep Georgia's borders inviolate.' [A similar threat came from the head of Georgia's wartime administration, Giorgi Khaindrava, on the pages of Le Monde Diplomatique in April 1993. Goga (Giorgi) Khaindrava, told the correspondent from Le Monde Diplomatique that "there are only 80,000 Abkhazians, which means that we can easily and completely destroy the genetic stock of their nation by killing 15,000 of their youth. And we are perfectly capable of doing this.''] https://abkhazworld.com/aw/conflict/729-chronicle-1992-93-ge...