(Bishkek) At least 94 people have been killed this week in border clashes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the two sides said on Sunday, the worst violence in years between these countries which have established a fragile truce.
Posted yesterday at 2:05 p.m.
The situation on the disputed border of these two former Soviet republics of Central Asia was however calm in the evening, according to Bishkek, after the signing of an emergency ceasefire on Friday.
Tajik diplomacy published a first detailed report on its side on Facebook on Sunday, reporting 35 dead and 25 wounded in the fighting between Wednesday and Friday, and saying that most of the dead were civilians.
This source assures that the Kyrgyz army notably killed twelve people during a drone strike on a mosque, six others during another drone attack against a school, and seven others when shooting at an ambulance.
AFP was unable to verify these statements from an independent source, in an authoritarian country that is very closed to the press.
For its part, in its latest assessment, the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health indicated that 59 Kyrgyz had been killed in the Batken region, located in the south-west of Kyrgyzstan and bordering Tajikistan.
Bishkek also said 144 people were injured and Emergency Situations Minister Boobek Ajikeeb said on Sunday that four Kyrgyz soldiers were missing.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov announced a national day of mourning on Monday.
This is an exceptionally serious human toll, during border fighting, since the independence of these two countries in 1991.
Putin calls for calm
The toll of the fighting now far exceeds that of previous major border fighting, in April 2021, which caused the death of around fifty people and raised fears of a larger-scale conflict.
In telephone interviews, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday called on Kyrgyz Presidents Sadyr Japarov and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon to avoid new clashes in these countries where Moscow historically plays the role of referee.
“Vladimir Putin called on the parties to prevent further escalation and to take steps to resolve the situation as soon as possible, and this only through peaceful and politico-diplomatic means,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin statement. .
The situation seemed to stabilize on Sunday. No major incidents were reported during the day.
In a statement, Kyrgyz border guards said that as of 10 p.m. local time (1700 GMT) the situation at the border in the Batken and Osh regions “remained tense”, but “with a tendency to stabilize”.
“As part of the agreements reached, the forces and resources sent as reinforcements are being withdrawn from the border to their usual places of deployment,” added this source.
“The forces of the two republics [kirghize et tadjike] control public order in the border territories” and conduct patrols on the roads between the localities of Khujand and Kanibadam, in Tajikistan, and Arka and Borbordouk, in the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan, the guards said. – Kyrgyz borders.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called officials from both sides by telephone on Saturday “to foster dialogue for a lasting ceasefire”, a United Nations spokesman said.
The border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is the scene of regular fighting. Nearly half of the 970 kilometers of common border has been contested since the breakup of the USSR, against a backdrop of tensions over access to resources.