Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have traded blame for fighting on their border that has killed at least 24 people, wounded dozens, and prompted a mass evacuation.
Kyrgyzstan’s Health Ministry said early on Saturday that 24 bodies had been delivered to hospitals in the Batken region that borders Tajikistan.
An additional 87 people were wounded, the ministry said.
Clashes on the border that began earlier this week grew into large-scale fighting on Friday involving tanks, artillery and rocket launchers.
As part of the shelling, Tajik forces struck the regional capital, Batken, with rockets.
** Tensions on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan escalated on September 14. Tajik border guard units penetrated into an undefined area of the border near the Bulak-Bashi area of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken Region and "took up fighting positions". In response to the Kyrgyz servicemen’s demand to leave the area, the Tajik officers opened fire. A shootout ensued. A few hours later armed clashes also occurred in the Kak-Sai and Pasky-Aryk areas of the Batken Region. By late afternoon, the shootouts had ceased. The Kyrgyz side said two servicemen were wounded and three civilians were injured.
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The Tajik military fired mortars at the Kyrgyz village of Pasky-Aryk, the press office of the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security (UKMK) told Sputnik on Saturday.
ReplyDelete"In violation of agreements reached earlier, from 8:50 a.m. to 8:55 a.m. (local time, from 02:50 to 02:55 GMT), the Tajik side fired mortars at the village of Pasky-Aryk in the Batken Region," the office's spokesperson said.
As of 9:00 a.m. on Friday, the situation on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border remains tense, he added.
"Personnel of the units of the border guard service of Kyrgyzstan's UKMK, deployed in the Batken Region, are taking measures to stabilize the existing situation," the spokesperson said.
He added that the night on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, where fierce armed clashes took place between the armed forces of the two countries on Friday, "passed quietly, without incidents."