Moscow/Tbilisi - Two Georgian police officers were killed when a land mine exploded near the border of South Ossetia, where Georgia went to war with Russia in August.

The Georgian Interior Ministry said the mine detonated while the policemen were on patrol in the border village of Dvani around 7:15 am (0415 GMT) on Monday.

A second mine exploded shortly after, injuring three policemen who arrived at the scene to help, the ministry said in a statement.

Dvani is just south-west of the separatist capital of South Ossetia near the Georgian of Gori in a buffer zone occupied by Russian troops until EU military observers replaced them last month.

Georgian police resumed their duties in the trouble border zone after Russian troops pulled-back under the EU-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the five-day conflict.

Firefights and acts of pillaging are still being reported three months on from the war.

EU observers said on Monday they were deploying to the area of the blast to verify Georgian claims of gun fire by South Ossetia militia.

Hansjoerg Haber, head of EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia, said the border incident "risks escalating the still-tense situation."

"This attack by an improvised explosive device is an unacceptable breach of the (ceasefire)," he said. "We repeat our call on all sides to prevent further provocations." (dpa)