Abut 200 Tajik nationals have been stranded on the Kazakh-Uzbek border due the coronavirus crisis. They are living in trash ban tents and waiting for permission to return home for more than two months.
About 200 Tajik nationals – labor migrants, women and children, among them there are even wheelchair users – were en route to Tajikistan from Russia, but got stuck on the Kazakh-Uzbek border in Kazakhstan’s Turkestan region amid the coronavirus crisis. They sleep on cardboards and many run out of money. Their life has been described so by Kazakh TV channel Astanatv.
Meanwhile, the Tajik MFA information department denies the report that Tajik nationals have been stuck on the Kazakh-Uzbek border for more than two months as absolutely baseless.
“Until May 17, about 35 of our nationals have been provided with jobs and dwelling. They have no any problems. After May 17, somebody disseminated information that border had opened and Tajik nationals could return home. After that, people have begun moving towards the border, and more than 200 our nationals are there today. They will be brought home within the next few days,” representative of the Tajik MFA information department told Asia-Plus on June 2.
One of those stuck on the Kazakh-Uzbek border, Umar Hamidov, told Astanatv that local volunteers are providing assistance to Tajik nationals, who are living in trash bag tents. They have been bringing food products and clothes. But this is sometimes not enough and they have applied to the government though social networks. After that, representatives of the Tajik Embassy in Kazakhstan have arrived in the camp of Tajik nationals stuck on the Kazakh-Uzbek border, but they have failed to solve anything, according to Hamidov.
Tajikistan’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Khairullo Ibodzoda, told Astanatv that the Tajik nationals would be brought to Tajikistan within the next few days. Now Tajik diplomats are trying to get permission from the Uzbek side to cross its border.
