The Ombudsman Institute completed meetings with women forcedly displaced from the shelled areas in Batken town, Batken and Kadamjay districts
The Ombudsman Institute completed meetings with women forcedly displaced from the shelled areas in Batken town, Batken and Kadamjay districts.
On September 27-28, 2022, Akyikatchy Atyr Abdrakhmatova, together with employees of the Ombudsman Office, conducted a survey among women who were forced to flee from the villages of Batken region shelled by the Tajik military. The women were temporarily placed in Arpa-Sai village, Kadamzhay town and Batken town.
As part of the universal investigation of the Ombudsman Institute there is confirmed information that the Tajik military planned and organized shelling civilians in border villages using heavy military equipment. An armed attack on all border villages by the military of Tajikistan began at 6-7 o'clock in the morning of September 16, after shelling houses and social objects. The houses of civilians were looted, some burned and destroyed.
Women from the affected villages demand:
- Provide a guarantee of the civilians safety who are living in villages near the border.
- Provide humanitarian assistance to the families who remained or returned to the shelled villages.
- Urgently organize the education process for children, provide them with warm clothes and school supplies and organise long-term psychological care.
The Akyikatchy Institute draws attention to the fact that most of the women who were interviewed were forced to flee from the villages of Kok-Tash, Min-Bulak, Dostuk, Ak-Sai, Kok-Terek, Min-Oruk, Ak-Tatyr, Kara-Bak, and this is fourth time in the current year when they were forced to leave home due to various armed provocations by Tajik officials. Women from the villages interviewed are at a loss over the decision to remove and mothball the border posts and outposts. They are concerned about the safety of their families and the possibility of continued provocations by Tajikistan, as it has been for many years.
