Tajikistan Sends Humanitarian Aid To Kyrgyzstan

Thousands of refugees have fled across the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border

DUSHANBE -- The Tajik government has dispatched an aid caravan to the Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad to help people suffering from the ethnic unrest in that southern region, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.

Mukhtor Abdulloh, a regional government spokesman in Tajikistan's northern Sughd Province, said the aid comprises 180 tons of flour, rice, pasta, and vegetable oil and 10 tons of diesel fuel.

Tajikistan has also decided to reopen an old transit road from Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan via the Tajik district of Konibodom for ethnic Uzbek refugees from Kyrgyzstan who want to go to Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile, some 60 Tajik students at Batken State University in southern Kyrgyzstan have been temporarily evacuated to Tajikistan.

The Tajik authorities have denied reports that some Uzbek refugees have entered Tajik territory. They say border controls have been strengthened due to the violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks.