DUSHANBE, May 8, 2014, Asia-Plus – The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry summoned Tajik Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Olim Rahimov on May 8 to hand over an official note over the clashes that took place along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border on May 7.
According to information posted on the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry’s website, Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Erlan Abdyldayev expressed concern about “illegal actions of Tajik nationals in the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic.”
Kyrgyzstan reportedly demanded that comprehensive measures should be taken to find and punish those guilty of the clashes and repair damage caused to Kyrgyz nationals.
We will recall that clashes between villages along the Tajik-Kyrgyz took place in the evening of May 7 at around 5:00 pm.
At least 60 people from both sides were reportedly injured in the violence that broke out when an argument between residents of the Tajik exclave of Vorukh within Kyrgyzstan and the Kyrgyz village of Kuktash turned into stone-throwing battle.
“Clashes broke out after a group of young Kyrgyz men being in a state of drunkenness pelted a car of resident of the Tajik village of Vorukh with stones,” an official source at the Sughd regional administration told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, seven residents of Isfara were hospitalized with cerebral injuries and one Tajik national sustained a hunting gun shot wound.
“Border guards and police from both countries fired into the air to disperse the crowd,” the source said, noting that one Tajik police officer was seriously injured.
Meanwhile, Radio Liberty says that at about the same time, people reports identify as Tajik citizens burned down a store in the village of Zhaka-Oruk, some 30 kilometers from Kuktash.
