ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Actions carried out by Kyrgyz and Tajik forces during a four-day conflict along the Central Asian countries’ contested border that left more than 100 civilians and soldiers dead in September included “serious violations of the laws of war by both sides,” Human Rights Watch said.
The report, released on May 2, is the first by a major rights watchdog since the most lethal incident yet in a conflict that has its roots in border disagreements originating from when both countries were part of the Soviet Union.
HRW said many of the actions by the countries “likely amount to war crimes,” in what was at the time the second large-scale conflict between the two neighbors in 18 months.
Incidents highlighted in the report included attacks on civilian vehicles and ambulances, the “indiscriminate” use of explosives, extrajudicial killings by military forces, and arson attacks on homes and civilian infrastructure.
In a series of recommendations, the group called on both governments to hold perpetrators to account for “serious violations of international humanitarian law” and train their armed forces personnel on the application of international humanitarian law in conflict situations.
The group also said that any agreement reached in ongoing border demarcation talks should acknowledge the rights of local populations “to education, adequate housing, and water” in the fertile but densely populated and water-stressed region.
HRW’s 89-page report drew on 86 interviews, including 69 with eyewitnesses, victims, or relatives of victims; 10 days of onsite investigations in October and November 2022; a review of medical records and other documents; an analysis of satellite imagery; the verification of 12 videos showing attacks and their aftermath; and 3D modeling to analyze the impact of a laser-guided bomb attack and attacks on medical vehicles.
The focus of the report was the conflict’s impact on civilians rather than military personnel.
HRW documented 37 civilian deaths, five of them children, and injuries to 36 others on both sides. But “considering media reports and official victim lists, the full number could reach 51 civilians killed and 121 injured,” HRW said, not including casualties among military personnel.
WATCH: There are burned-out shops, destroyed homes, and many stories of death and destruction on both sides of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border following clashes between the two countries that have claimed around 100 lives. (Published on September 19, 2022)
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Deadly Clashes On Tajik-Kyrgyz Border Leave A Swath Of Destruction
Well over 100,000 people were displaced in Kyrgyzstan during the conflict. Tajikistan has not released a figure for the number of people displaced in the conflict.
Prior to April 2021, when dozens died in brutal clashes, conflicts tended not to spread or to result in full-scale military mobilizations along the frontier.
The report does not draw a conclusion as to who started the September conflict.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly just days after the conflict, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov said that Tajikistan “attacked” Kyrgyzstan.
The Tajik Foreign Ministry accused Kyrgyzstan of "an attack on the territory of Tajikistan along the entire line of the border with Kyrgyzstan."
In an interview with RFE/RL ahead of the report’s release, HRW’s Senior Crisis and Conflict Researcher Jean-Baptiste Gallopin said that international humanitarian law “applies equally to all parties of a conflict.”
“Whether an army is attacking or defending, it has the same duty not to violate the laws of war,” Gallopin said. "That means in particular the principle of distinction between military and civilian targets and the principle of proportionality in the use of force."
HRW said that the third day of the conflict -- September 16 -- was particularly packed with violations.
“At around 5 p.m. that day, the evidence indicated that Kyrgyz forces used a Bayraktar TB-2 drone to deliver a laser-guided bomb near Tajik forces minutes after they arrived in the central square in Ovchi Kalacha, a Tajik town on the border,” HRW wrote.
The explosive hit at a time when local civilians were gathering next to a mosque after a funeral, killing 10 and wounding 13 others, HRW said, describing the strike as a “disproportionate and apparently indiscriminate attack.”
WATCH: Fresh clashes erupted at the border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on September 16, with both sides accusing each other of using heavy weaponry in fighting that has killed at least three people and wounded dozens over three days. (Published on September 16, 2022)
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Tanks, Firing, And Evacuations Amid Kyrgyz-Tajik Clashes
On the same day, Tajik soldiers repeatedly fired on cars carrying Kyrgyz civilians fleeing the fighting, the report stated.
One Kyrgyz woman interviewed said that her family crawled out of their car “to avoid being killed in it if it exploded” after Tajik soldiers shot at them, injuring her husband and son.
The family lay still for some time, but Tajik soldiers opened fire again when they moved, she said.
The report also said Kyrgyz combatants likely fired at ambulances, which enjoy special protection under humanitarian law.
One attack on two "clearly marked" ambulances and a private car carrying civilians on a bridge near the Tajik village of Chorbog in Tajikistan left 10 people dead, including four children and two medical workers.
HRW used 3D modeling to reconstruct the attack and judged that the fire had come from the Kyrgyz village of Dostuk, some 110 meters away.
The group noted that “to intentionally direct attacks against [the ambulances] when they are clearly marked is recognized as a war crime in an international armed conflict, under the statute of the International Criminal Court.”
HRW’s report documented that Tajik forces occupied Kyrgyz villages during the conflict, leaving several virtually destroyed.
On September 16, “Tajik forces overran Kyrgyz forces and, accompanied by Tajik-speaking people in civilian clothes, entered Kyrgyz villages on the border. During this brief occupation, Tajik forces killed at least six civilian men, including three while they were apparently fleeing, and two in apparent extrajudicial executions,” HRW said.
The brief seizure saw wide-scale looting by Tajiks in plainclothes “under the watch of Tajik forces,” with hundreds of homes as well as kindergartens, schools, medical facilities, and administrative buildings burned “in an apparent attempt to clear the area of its population,” the group added.
Human Rights Watch issued a separate recommendation to Tajikistan to investigate these events.
Almost half of the 970-kilometer Kyrgyz-Tajik border has yet to be demarcated, and Kyrgyz President Japarov said on April 17 that progress on border demarcation had “slowed,” and blamed Tajikistan’s commitment to a map from 1924 as the reason for the lack of progress.
“In the past year, I said that we will finish everything by May, because the parties were agreed and work was moving quickly. Unfortunately, nothing has been completed yet,” he said.
Tajikistan has not commented on the progress of the talks.
HRW’s Gallopin said that Tajiks and Kyrgyz living at the border were weary and hungry for peace after having their lives turned upside down by conflicts in successive years.
“Our interviews with people on both sides of the border showed that local populations are tired of these terrifying conflicts and are really yearning for peace,” Gallopin told RFE/RL.