These confrontations occur while the presidents of the two countries have participated since Thursday in a summit of the cooperation organization of Shanghai in Samarcande, Uzbekistan.
Le Monde with AFP
In full climbing clashes between these two Central Asian countries which have made more than thirty injured, Kyrgyzstan accused Tajikistan of having bombed, Friday, September 16, a border town with heavy weapons. If clashes regularly take place on the border between these two former Soviet republics entangled for years in a territorial dispute, these violence mark a notable worsening.
This escalation comes as the leaders of the two countries, President Kyrgyz, Sadyr Japarov, and his counterpart Tadjik, Emomali Rahmon, are currently participating in a regional Shanghai cooperation organization (OCS), Uzbekistan. They even appeared together on a group photo, Thursday evening.
According to Bichkek, Tadjikes forces bombed the border town of Batken on Friday, located in southwest Kyrgyzstan, in an area disputed by the two countries. “The surroundings of Batken airport and [places] located on the edge of the city found themselves under the fire of multiple rocket launcher systems. Civil infrastructure in the city of Batken were destroyed,” said the Kyrgyz border guards in a press release.
For its part, the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health announced that thirty -one people had been hospitalized on Friday, according to an updated assessment that quickly increases. At least four soldiers were victims of “firearms injuries”, according to regional authorities. 2> “Intense clashes”
The State Committee for the National Security of Kyrgyzstan said that “intense clashes” and “violent” took place in the border area, accusing Tajikistan of “bombing the Kirghiz territory with all its available arsenal” and to continue to deploy “heavy equipment”.
He reported the use of “heavy armored vehicles, multiple rocket launchers and aviation” by Tajikistan. “All terrestrial and air attacks find their response from the Kyrgyz side, which prevents any capture of territory,” he added.
Tajikistan, for its part, accused the Kirghizes forces of having opened fire, early Friday, on Tadjiks border posts, without reporting immediately of victims in its ranks. The Russian news agency Ria Novosti reported that a Tadjik border guard had been killed and that three border guards had been injured. This assessment was not confirmed from an official source.
Leak of civilians, opening of reception centers
According to Kyrgyz diplomacy, the foreign ministers of the two countries spoke to try to end the clashes. The inhabitants of several border villages fled the fighting area, also reported the ministry of Kirghiz emergency situations, announcing the opening of reception centers.
At the beginning of the week, clashes between the two countries had killed two people in the ranks of Tadjiks border guards and several injured on both sides. The border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzistan is the scene of regular deadly clashes.
Almost half of the 970 kilometers of border is disputed and the progress in terms of delimitation has been slow in recent years. The year 2021 has seen an unprecedented number of clashes oppose the two parties, killing more than fifty people and leaving the enlargement of the conflict.